The freedom of expression is an inalienable human right. The erudite American president, Benjamin Franklin, famously said, “Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of speech.” The irony can hardly be missed that the current regime, which came to power with the deafening claims to clean the Augean Stables of corruption and cronyism and purge the country from the culture of loot and plunder, should be the foremost in muzzling the freedom of speech.

Pakistan shows the contours of an extremely puzzling jigsaw with respect to stamping out the dissent. However, four patterns are all too obvious to be missed.

Pakistani media has been facing unprecedented curbs over the last two years. The degeneration of freedom of the press in Pakistan can be measured from the fact that Pakistan has slipped by six points from 139th position in 2017 to 145th in 2020 on the World Press Freedom Index, which compares 180 countries with respect to media freedoms.

A sustained policy of intimidation of the media used a variety of slings and arrows: attacks on media houses, withholding of government advertising dues forcing major downsising, forced termination of the contracts of journalists known for their criticism of the government, and criminal cases against journalists for their private social media postings under the controversial cybercrime law.

The purported financial pain inflicted on the “delinquent” media houses is not distributed equally among all the stakeholders. While there is no secret that the owners and executives of the media houses generally have deep pockets and can endure the financial punishment relatively easily, a large number of workers in the media industry are bearing the brunt.

The salaries of the workers have been delayed for months and given the rising unemployment and dwindling business opportunities, there are few alternatives available to them.

Second, a sustained effort is afoot to censor social media as well. The potential of social media to provide a convenient platform to organise dissent is all too well-recognised. Role of Twitter and other social media platforms in Arab Spring gives repressive regimes all over the world terrible vibes. So it is no surprise that the Pakistani government has been proactively pursuing the policy of limiting access to social media.

In 2019, Pakistan made the highest number of requests (over 31 percent) to Facebook to restrict its content. With 27 percent of the requests for content restriction, Mexico stood second. What may be common between these two countries is not left to the imagination. Recently, the federal cabinet approved Removal and Blocking of Unlawful Content (Procedure, Oversight and Safeguards) Rules, 2020 (“Rules”).

Asia Internet Coalition, which is the trade association of leading global internet companies, has alleged that Pakistan’s government is demanding “data localisation” which means shifting the servers, where user data is stored, to Pakistani territory, along with complete, on-demand access to any and all data stored on these servers.

Third, a selective approach is being used on social media. While the government is proactively trying to influence the social media platforms, such as Twitter and Facebook to take down content considered inappropriate, most of the opposition leaders and some journalists are routinely vilified in Pakistan. Character assassination of the leaders of the opposition and other ‘undesirable’ individuals is propped up with “top trends”.

A cursory textual analysis of the top trends shows that these have all the trappings of a coordinated effort, which can be anything but a spontaneous expression of public opinion. It is no longer rocket science to understand how the popularity of hashtags is artificially boosted, and how they start trending. Twitter and Facebook have carried out a number of steps to curb the potentially misleading and false information by blocking a large number of fake accounts which were created ostensibly to drive up the trends and make a pre-conceived social statement.

Fourth, use of invectives and foul language on social media has become the choicest tool to silence the political opponents. The no-holds-barred, bare-knuckle war between political rivals on social media has driven a deep wedge in the national politics. Values of decency and restraint have largely gone to the winds.

A political opponent is no longer a fellow citizen with the fundamental right to have any political opinion. A political opponent is a pariah, and it is always good to have a battery of insulting names for the political opponent. The concept of bipartisanship has nearly vanished from the political discourse. “Either you are with us or against us” largely defines the political attitude of the day.

The potential of social media to provide a convenient platform to organise dissent is all too well-recognised. Role of Twitter and other social media platforms in Arab Spring gives repressive regimes all over the world terrible vibes.

Why is the government taking such decisions to censor free speech? The list of demands which the government reportedly wanted the technology platforms to fulfil is revealing. Pakistani government wanted the media platforms to i) open local offices in Pakistan, ii) store all data of Pakistani users within Pakistani territory, iii) “share all data outside of the normal, legal process that exists for normally sharing such data”, iv) fix turnaround times for companies to remove content when ordered by the government, and v) start blocking certain types of content and denying access to their services automatically even without receiving a formal “takedown” request from the government.

The merit of the demands made by the government needs to be analysed with reference to the reason why the government wants such control over the online content in the first place. The official reason offered for having such sweeping control over online content is invariably the protection of “social, cultural and religious values of the country”.

The question is how plausible the official line is, and how many takers there would be for the apparent eyewash. One might ask what has so fundamentally changed in Pakistan in the last two years, which has posed an existential threat to Pakistan’s value system? The government’s claim that it is the guardian of social values stands miserably exposed, when the news of the rape of women and children continue to flash the headlines, and there is no corresponding increase in the conviction rates.

Does the government want to silence the media to duck the issues of governance? There is a near consensus that the performance of the government has been disappointing. Even spokespersons for the government have admitted this.

The government has claimed ad nauseam that the previous regimes have left the country in such disarray that it is next to impossible to put everything right over the short term. Very few would disagree that no rivers of milk and honey flowed in the previous regimes. Even fewer would disagree that a structural overhaul of the institutions requires painstaking efforts spanning decades. But does that justify demanding such sweeping powers to control the media?

The most tenable explanation is that the government wants such sweeping powers to silence free speech to avoid the prying eyes of the media and public from the circumstances surrounding the 2018 elections and the resulting questions over its legitimacy.

It is almost a truism that curbs on the free expression can be counter-productive and self-defeating. A free and open debate on major national issues is an infinitely superior solution. In An exclusive decision-making process always leads to doubt and mistrust.

Pakistan’s disintegration over short 24 years of independence from British Raj was arguably one of the most tragic events of our national life. Many historical accounts of the tragedy have faulted the denial of freedom of expression as the most important factor of national disintegration.

There are many more reasons why any attempt at stamping out free speech should be a legitimate reason to feel alarmed. After all, people in this part of the world have never lived comfortably with the silence of the graveyard.

People in this part of the world have an enviable history of jealously guarding their right to free speech. During the British Raj, the newspapers catalysed the freedom struggle and inspired and vitalised the masses in an unprecedented and unparalleled way. Draconian laws under the military dictatorships in the past to silence free speech were only partially successful. The only objective such misconceived laws achieved was irreversible damage to the body politics of Pakistan.

It is about time we stopped, turned back, and learned from history.

The writer is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Economics at COMSATS University Islamabad, Lahore Campus