"Pakistan Has the Freest Press in the Developing World"

Saad Sarwar

There are reports in the media, that the US has plans to reign in Pakistani Media by earmarking $50 million dollars for the year 2010 to be spent on different media outlets in Pakistan. The need was felt by the US after the Kerry Lugar aid bill was harshly criticized in the Pakistani media due to the tough conditions attached to it. The US thinks such criticism was unjustified and now thinks that bribing Pakistani media outlets with such handsome doling of cash would effectively gag the media about raising issues of Pakistani national security that may be averse to the US plans in the region.

One western diplomat in Islamabad is quoted as saying about the Pakistani media in a Financial Times article, “Whatever you might say otherwise, it is the case that Pakistan’s civil society, courts and the press are all among the freest in the developing world”. He further adds, “This is a strength which we may not like in this particular case because the islamists are using it to their advantage, but it is a strength”.

The US government is already using Voice of America to run its propaganda campaign in Pakistan using its alliance with a leading Pakistani channel GEO TV which airs such programs. It is also reported that Express TV is next in line for such kind of alliances with the US organization. The US champions itself as a promoter of freedom all around the world while at the same time taking steps to curtail the freedom of media all over. The situation in Pakistan is a case in point. This is not the first time the US has publicly taken steps to curtail the freedom of media in Pakistan to change the public opinion averse to the US. After the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan, the US told the then Pakistani President Musharraf to take action to stop people from criticizing the US to which Musharraf had no answer but to tell the US that it is not possible to do so.

Most countries around the world monitor foreign media takeovers or alliances to ensure that national security is not compromised by foreign indoctrination. In the US, no foreign national is allowed to own a TV network. This rule created difficulties for the Australian billionaire TV magnate Rupert Murdoch to start his famous right wing Fox TV Channel in the US. To bypass the rule the billionaire applied for a US citizenship which he got and brought the Fox Channel to the US. Even starting a homegrown channel for broadcast on cable is difficult in the US if it doesn’t conform to the mainstream American values. This can be adjudged from the story of the Muslim TV network called Bridges TV which had to find 10,000 cable customers willing to subscribe to it before such a channel could be aired.
Pakistan should also have some laws and regulations which limit and deny such foreign acquisitions/interference in critical areas like oil companies, essential mineral resources and more importantly the media, thereby ensuring Pakistani media is free of foreign interests and solely dedicated to the welfare of the Pakistani nation. It is also important that Pakistani Supreme Court take a suo moto notice of such dole-outs which are designed to curtail the freedom of media in Pakistan by the US government.

Not only the Pakistani media but the Pakistani judiciary is also under increasing fire from some elements in the US press. The article in the WSJ by US attorneys David Rivkin and Lee Casey also implies that the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Pakistan should be under the Executive branch of Pakistan rather than the judiciary acting as an independent pillar of the State. They also fail to notice that unlike the US which has a presidential style of government, Pakistan is a parliamentary democracy with the Prime Minister holding the seat of power instead of the President of Pakistan which is mainly a ceremonial position, just like the Queen of England. These efforts to undermine the judiciary of Pakistan by these right wing elements in the US press are designed to curtail the hard won freedom of another important pillar of the Pakistani State namely the judiciary. Pakistan has struggled hard to gain the freedom of Media and Judiciary that it has attained to a degree today and many Pakistanis have paid a heavy price during the process. It is imperative now to preserve these two critical pillars of the state at all costs for the Pakistani society and nation to be seen as a beacon of freedom all over the world and the struggles of the media and judiciary through tough times they went through is not forgotten.

For more on this article, please click on the following link: In the Name of Freedom: United States of America Taming Pakistani Media: Economistan.com