Ridiculous laws
IT seems our politicians never learn. In their eagerness to appease the powers that be, they keep coming up with terrible ways to undermine fundamental rights and concede even more power to unelected quarters.
One such legislation currently under consideration in parliament seeks to penalise the ridiculing of the Pakistan Army and the country’s judiciary with severe jail terms and / or hefty fines.
Titled the Criminal Laws (Amendment) Act, 2023, the draft bill has reportedly been vetted by the Ministry of Law and Justice, headed by the PML-N’s Azam Nazeer Tarar, after being initiated by the Ministry of Interior, currently headed by Rana Sanaullah, also from the PML-N.
The bill seeks to add new sections to the Pakistan Penal Code and the Code of Criminal Procedure to make the ‘crime’ of ‘intentionally ridiculing’ the armed forces or judiciary punishable with up to five years in prison and/ or a fine of up to Rs1 million, and also to give law enforcement agencies the power to arrest a suspected offender without a warrant.
The offence will be non-bailable and non-compoundable and only challengeable through a sessions court. The only check and balance offered is that the government of the day will approve each case before it is prosecuted.
However, given the pliability of our civilian overlords when under enough pressure, that is hardly something to take comfort in. It ought to be mentioned that this legislation has been proposed in response to what the government has described as a “deliberate cyber campaign” against “important state institutions and their officials”.
However, if the recent banning of internet knowledge resource Wikipedia is any indication of how deeply suspicious our authorities are of digital platforms and how little they understand them, this latest attempt to control online narratives, too, will backfire.
It will invariably be used to stifle any criticism of state policies that are opposed by the general public and will soon come back to haunt those championing it today.
The PTI government had issued the Peca Ordinance this same month last year. The Islamabad High Court thankfully shot the law down in April 2022, and the party was lucky to be spared its consequences.
“The criminalisation of defamation, protection of individual reputations through arrest and imprisonment and the resultant chilling effect violates the letter of the Constitution,” the court had noted in reference to the freedom of expression granted to all citizens.
Almost a year on, a new government is repeating the PTI’s blunder despite that ruling. It seems that certain quarters simply do not care what the law says — just what they want it to say.
One cannot help but wonder if it is perhaps the law of the land which actually needs protection from repeated ridicule by the country’s elite.
Published in Dawn, February 10th, 2023
Victim-blaming
ONE of the perpetrators of the gang rape in Islamabad’s F-9 park had ‘advice’ for the victim that showed him as being of one mind with far too many people in Pakistan. He told her “not to come to the park at this time” — a classic case of victim-blaming that one witnesses repeatedly among the public and their leaders. The incident in question took place last week, when the woman went to the park at around 8pm accompanied by a male colleague. According to the FIR, they were waylaid by two men at gunpoint and taken towards a wooded area. When she put up resistance and raised her voice to attract the attention of any passersby that may have been around, the men beat her, separated her from her colleague and subjected her to rape. The police are examining CCTV footage of the park and have issued a sketch of one of the perpetrators.
To suggest that a rape victim is in any way responsible for the violence inflicted upon her is to be ignorant, crass and misogynistic. Such views stem from a mentality that sees the public space as an essentially male domain in which females must tread very cautiously, careful not to present any ‘temptation’ lest men lose control. How does this ‘temptation theory’ explain the many victims of child rape, both girls and boys? The onus for men’s bad, or in this case, criminal behaviour, is on men alone. When national leaders contend otherwise, or display a muddled understanding of the issue, it condones by implication an entire host of unacceptable behaviour among men who believe they are inherently ‘programmed’ to prey on women, whether in the workplace or in a park. Women being cloistered inside their homes is no guarantee of their safety either. Around the same time as the park incident, a woman was gang-raped inside her house in a rural area of Islamabad Capital City. Men who rape do so because they have a criminal bent of mind, not because they can. It is an insult to the decent men in our midst who would not consider a woman’s appearance or conduct as giving them licence to visit sexual violence upon her. The state must ensure that public spaces are safe for women, and that men who rape are held to account for their crime.
Published in Dawn, February 10th, 2023
Jumbo cabinet
AT a time when the nation is struggling to maintain financial solvency, the federal government is sending all the wrong messages, especially where the size of the cabinet is concerned. The prime minister on Wednesday announced the inclusion of seven special assistants — SAPMs — bringing the cabinet’s size to an unwieldy figure of 85. The message from the top seems to be austerity for the people, business as usual for the ruling elite. While the newly inducted cabinet members will reportedly work on a pro bono basis, with the interior minister saying they will not avail salary, perks or privileges, it is difficult to believe that these officials will come at zero cost to the exchequer. After all, their office expenses and other related overheads are likely to be borne by the state. Moreover, when huge numbers of people — some say millions — across the country have lost their jobs, in both the manufacturing and services industries, expanding the federal cabinet is just bad optics. Justifying the move, the interior minister bizarrely said the additions were made “to praise them [new SAPMs]”. The PDM’s jumbo cabinet is perhaps trying to replicate the feat achieved by former Balochistan chief minister Aslam Raisani, who in 2011 had a 51-member cabinet drawn from the 65 provincial assembly members in Pakistan’s least-developed province.
Instead of stuffing more people into the cabinet, the administration should be leading a leaner operation and cutting down on unnecessary expenditures. Considering the fact that the PDM government only has a few more months in power — unless the set-up is given an extension due to ‘force majeure’ — the new appointments make even less sense. Unless of course ‘electables’ and ‘influentials’ are being given incentives to stick with the PML-N come election time. Whatever the justifications, there should be no more additions to the cabinet, and preferably its size should be reduced so that the administration can concentrate on the grave challenges at hand.
Published in Dawn, February 10th, 2023