he ability to craft a story and the art to tell it engagingly have been valued since ancient times. With the advent of various forms of governance and the possibility of public participation, there developed a vocation: public interest story telling. From the publication of the minutes of official orders and proceedings of the Roman Senate sanctioned by Julius Caesar (100 BC-44 BC) in the form of Acta Diurna in 59 BCE to modern day daily newspapers, one of the primary purposes of this has been to keep the public informed about current events and developments and try to hold the powerful accountable. This has also provided a platform to the public to share their perspectives.

History tells us that Augustus Caesar (63 BC-14 AD) was not against the idea of dissemination of news about the government’s actions and activities. However, unlike his great-uncle, Julius, he refused public access to daily updates of Senate proceedings. He made sure that the acta were reserved for senators and state officials. Rome and Romans have been trailblazers in many fields – from power politics to palace intrigues and from style of governance to timeless architecture.

Today many Western commentators and writers describe Pakistan as a praetorian state. A prominent aspect of that criticism is the dictators’ policy of inventing means to suppress journalists and the media. From Pakistan’s first military dictator, Ayub Khan’s 1962 Press and Publication Ordinance to successive repressive additions by Zia-ul Haq and Pervez Musharraf, martial law regimes found innovative ways to censor, control and curb the country’s media and the public freedom of expression.

The civilian overlords also toyed with the tools employed by military dictators. Since most of Pakistani media is owned privately, tussles between leading media houses, independent journalists and successive governments have continued. One reason for maintaining a robust reporting streak was that many leading journalists, effectively supported by their employers, believed what George Orwell described as the “freedom of the Press, if it means anything at all, means the freedom to criticise and oppose.”

It would not be blatant exaggeration to claim that almost all Pakistani administrations – civil or military – have had dictatorial tendencies when it came to dealing with the press. One reason for this trend could be that “politicians” crafted, selected and elected ever since the seeds of “basic democrats” were sown by Ayub Khan in the political wastelands of West Pakistan found it hard to fashion something dramatically different from the practice of their puppeteers. The rulers’ desire to curtail the people’s right to freely express their thoughts and to curb the press as the custodians of public interest found its expression in legislation.

Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights reads, “everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.” It seems that those drafting a global document for democratic societies have great confidence in the collective conscience of humankind.

Compare this with Article 19 of the constitution of Pakistan. It says, “every citizen shall have the right to freedom of speech and expression, and there shall be freedom of the press, subject to any reasonable restriction imposed by law in the interest of the glory of Islam or the integrity, security or defence of Pakistan or any part thereof, friendly relations with foreign states, public order, decency or morality, or in relation to contempt of court, [commission of] or incitement to an offence.”

The picture that Article 19 of the Pakistani constitution paints in relation to the freedoms of expression or the press can be understood by an explanation broadly put forward by Amnesty International, “governments have a duty to prohibit hateful, inciteful speech but many abuse their authority to silence peaceful dissent by passing laws criminalising freedom of expression. This is often done in the name of counterterrorism, national security or religion.”

An argument can definitely be made that the Pakistani version of UDHR Article 19 is the fruition of the collective wisdom of Pakistan’s parliament thereby a representation of the free will of the Pakistani people. But does an article asphyxiated by myriad restrictions offer true freedom to Pakistan’s hapless millions to say what they might want to say? The turbulent history of the relationship between the state and the citizens reminds one of Noam Chomsky’s words: “if we don’t believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don’t believe in it at all.”

For years critics have picked a bone essentially with the establishment only when it came to matters relating to the freedom of expression or the press. But as the state and its institutions started fraying around 1980s, other contenders jumped into the fray as well. In 1993, an American neo-Nazi and white supremacist, Kevin Alfred Strom said, “to learn who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticise.” Today, there are many holy cows.

Many in Pakistan credit Gen Pervez Musharraf with liberalising the media scene by allowing private TV channels. But he was also the man who shut those same channels when criticism of his policies became too hot to handle. During an interview with the CNN to discuss why Gen Musharraf banned Pakistan’s most popular news channel, Geo News, in the mid-2000s, I was asked by the anchor why would Musharraf ban a TV channel when he himself had allowed an “unprecedented freedom of expression in the country?” I replied that “Pakistan, no doubt has unprecedented freedom of expression but there is very little freedom after expression.”

Dozens of businessmen were awarded licences to start TV networks under the Musharraf regime. This created an unhealthy competition leading to utter chaos in the nascent industry and yielded an unprecedented cacophony. Today, most media outlets are owned by big businesses that are out of bound for public discussion.

Today, the powerful, including the owners of media outlets, are protected. The threats are reserved for journalists and their families.

On May 3, journalists, academics, politicians and activists gathered in Islamabad alongside the Parliamentarians Commission for Human Rights to launch the Parliamentary Assessment Report of the 15th National Assembly 2018-2023 on the freedom of expression and safety of journalists. Citing national and international rights and media advocacy groups, the PCHR stated that journalists in Pakistan have been subject to brutal killings, injuries, abductions, arrests, attacks, threats and enforced disappearances etc. The commission quoted data from the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan indicating that 97 journalists have been killed over the last 30 years and more than 3,500 journalists have been subject to enforced disappearances since 2011. Reporters Without Frontiers has ranked Pakistan as one of the ten hardest countries for journalists. The Committee to Protect Journalists has placed Pakistan 11th in its 2023 Global Impunity Index that registers countries with the most impunity when they fail to prosecute killers of journalists. The RSF has ranked Pakistan 150 among other 180 countries in the World Press Freedom Index 2023.

Statements and assurances by successive governments and related authorities notwithstanding, facts and data on the subject show that Pakistan remains an extremely scary place for journalists and media workers.

The writer is the resident editor of The News, Islamabad