Press Freedom in Pakistan?

When General Musharraf came into power after a bloodless coup in 1999, the Pakistani media was by and large supportive, as was the public. Over the past five years, the number of private TV channels has multiplied and the electronic media have flourished. Generally, the media have been allowed to criticise the president and his government without fear of retaliation.

Najam Sethi is the editor of the weekly "Friday Times". He was kidnapped during democratically-elected Nawaz Sharif's rule for his anti-establishment reporting. He said the military dictator, President Musharraf, had given journalists more freedom than any civilian government before him.

He attributed this development to the "extraordinary development of the electronic media" and the fact that the "government has enabled private channels to be launched."

"This is something that Musharraf has done -- something that the previous democratic governments were not prepared to do. They wanted to retain control over the airwaves and over the radio waves in the public sector," Sethi added.

Radical change

But over the past few months things have changed radically. In March, Musharraf suspended the Chief Justice of Pakistan, Iftikhar Chaudhry. This action provoked nation-wide protests against the president.

The media played a decisive role by showing live coverage of the protests by lawyers and civil society and also of the court proceedings. The government then banned the private TV channel Geo from airing a programme that dealt with the suspension of Chief Justice which led to an open confrontation between the media and Musharraf. The tension is still in the air today.

Ayaz Amir writes for the leading English daily, "Dawn" and also hosts a political talk-show on ARY TV. He said the press had "welcomed his coup" and explained that this is "why he liked the notion of press freedom and did not stop it because it was very much in his favour."

But Amir also said that Musharraf is "uncomfortable when the criticism comes a bit close to his bone."

Unsafe situation

Going further, Mazhar Abbas, the secretary general of the Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists, said that Pakistani journalists are simply not free and it was not safe for them under Musharraf:

"The kind of pressure the media is facing from the intelligence agencies and from the different government circles is tremendous. In the last seven to eight years, 22 journalist have been killed in Pakistan, there have been over 100 attacks on newspapers, TV channels, journalists and their families."

The fact that these seemingly contradictory opinions are being voiced by leading players in today's Pakistani private media shows that Pakistan is witnessing more diversity of opinion than ever before. The transition phase is not over and only time will tell if Musharraf decides to clamp down on the media, he once allowed to flourish.