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Pakistani media ban silences political opponent Imran Khan

Pakistani media ban silences political opponent Imran Khan

 


Pakistan’s government has taken a big step in its march towards autocracy by imposing a blanket media ban on former Prime Minister Imran Khan, its latest attempt to silence the country’s most eligible politician in decades. decades. It’s another move by the state aimed at crushing any chance Khan has of regaining the top job by using, ironically enough, the very weapons he wielded to intimidate his political enemies.

Pakistan’s government has taken a big step in its march towards autocracy by imposing a blanket media ban on former Prime Minister Imran Khan, its latest attempt to silence the country’s most eligible politician in decades. decades. It’s another move by the state aimed at crushing any chance Khan has of regaining the top job by using, ironically enough, the very weapons he wielded to intimidate his political enemies.

The ban appears to be the latest salvo in the States’ war against its loudest and most intransigent adversary. In recent weeks, members of the Khans Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party have been arrested and imprisoned, while others have resigned. Khan himself could be arrested within weeks as the state builds its case against him, said Hassan Abbas, a professor of international relations at the National Defense University in Washington.

Human rights activists and journalists have shown little sympathy for Khan, who has tried to portray himself as the anti-establishment answer to all of Pakistan’s problems. There are concerns over clumsy censorship The Dawn newspaper called the ban a thinly disguised warning to the media to stay online, but Khan is widely vilified for his abuse of freedoms during a prime term shortened minister, which ended when parliament removed him from office in April 2022. He has used similar bans against his own political enemies, and journalists have been brutally targeted for their critical reporting. Still living with the culture of fear and self-censorship that Khan has exacerbated, most Pakistani journalists are unwilling to speak out against the government or the all-powerful military that supports it.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) called out the Khans government in its 2021 report, noting that efforts to control the media and contain dissent included violent attacks on journalists such as Absar Alam, who was shot dead outside his home; Asad Ali Toor, who was bound, gagged and beaten in his home; and talk show host Hamid Mir, who was taken off the air. All were strong critics of the Khans government.

Authorities have expanded their use of draconian sedition and anti-terrorism laws to stifle dissent, and have strictly regulated civil society groups that criticize government actions or policies. Authorities also cracked down on members and supporters of opposition political parties, HRW said of the Khan administration. (Last week, HRW lambasted the current government for proposing military tribunals for Khans supporters who were arrested in mass arrests last month.)

This ban on media coverage of Khan and the PTI was issued on Wednesday by the public electronic media regulator, known as PEMRA. He bars Khan and PTI personalities from appearing on television and bans television stations from broadcasting his speeches or press conferences. PTI communications director Raoof Hassan said the ban will ensure that nothing he (Khan) does will be reported in the media, at all levels. They are trying to totally black out PTI.

Khan now joins other public figures banned from media coverage. Manzoor Pashteen, who heads a civil rights organization called Pashtun Tahafuz Movement, which campaigns against extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances and military operations in predominantly Pashtun areas, is blackballed. Altaf Hussain, leader of the secular MQM party which he founded in 1984, is persona non grata. Khan’s ban has been criticized by journalists and rights activists, who have blamed it on the military, which brought Khan to power in 2018, ousted him last year and is now determined to keep him out, they said.

Pakistan’s military has served as kingmaker and eminence since the country’s founding in 1947, and it has ruled directly for about a third of that time. While in the West the concept of the deep state is often derided as a conspiracy theory, in Pakistan its deep and clearly visible skin: the military, the inter-service intelligence office, pro-military politicians , a large part of the media and the intelligentsia, sometimes the judges. The generals participate in foreign policy, maintaining the basic adversarial relationship with India and supporting the Taliban war in Afghanistan. They intervened in negotiations with multilateral financial institutions like the International Monetary Fund and the US government in an effort to stem the current economic crisis. Politicians cross the army at their peril: the penalty is swift excommunication, as Khan learns.

This ban on PEMRA is in line with the Pakistani military’s complete control and imprint on all aspects of Pakistan’s existence and its constant attempts to manipulate the political arena, the human rights lawyer said. the man Imaan Mazari. She noted that Khan imposed a similar ban in 2020 on former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. Politicians continue to be the victims of repression by military establishments, and instead of trying to forge a consensus to push them back to the barracks, they are always ready to be used against each other.

Pakistan’s shadow rulers use many means, from media blackouts to courts, to silence any potential critics, she said. These prohibitions have not worked in the past, and they will not work now. They show the desperation, in fact, with which the powers that be act to establish a kind of legitimacy and control, which is now completely eroded, she said.

The ban comes amid a crippling political impasse, largely caused by Khan and his supporters, and an economic crisis that has pushed Pakistan to the brink of bankruptcy and state failure. Inflation is officially 38% year-on-year, the worst in decades. Since being ousted in a parliamentary vote of no confidence in April 2022, Khan has deployed populist tactics in an attempt to force a general election he (probably rightly) thinks he will win. He called for the dissolution of PTI-controlled provincial assemblies and held huge hair-raising rallies while making unsubstantiated accusations against current Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif (Nawaz’s brother) and various army chiefs. He blamed an assassination attempt in November on the military, without providing evidence. He also blamed Washington for orchestrating his parliamentary ouster.

In turn, the government brought multiple charges against him, for a variety of alleged crimes such as corruption and terrorism; if anyone stands by, hell will be ineligible to run for office. If there is even one. Few commentators are convinced the vote, tentatively scheduled for this fall, will even take place, so fearful is the Sharif government and the military that Khan will win. A Gallup poll conducted in February gave Khan a 61% approval rating, making him the most popular politician in the country. Shehbaz Sharif came fifth, at 32%. The cat-and-mouse fiasco came to a head on May 9 when Khan was arrested by paramilitary forces. His support base exploded. Rioters who attacked army personnel and property now face trial in military courts, rather than civilian courts, prompting the latest rebuke from HRW.

In an interview with Reuters, Khan accused the military of orchestrating the May 9 protests to sideline me and said he himself expected to end up in military court. The sword, as Aeschylus and Matthew warned, is not only double-edged, but can be double-edged.

We are witnessing a process of dismantling a party by the same forces that once supported it, wrote prominent commentator Zahid Hussain in Dawn, in a clear reference to the military. Imran Khan has grossly miscalculated the cost of supporting the powerful establishment. The party may not be over yet, but it will be difficult for the former prime minister to regain lost political ground.

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