THE proverbial might of the pen is, in reality, unable to hold out against the barrel of the gun.

The new HRCP report, Harsh Sentences, charts the extent of capitulation in a dark media landscape where freedom of speech is throttled through covert means, including institutional and legal pressures. A record of the troubling state of freedom of expression during the last two years, it pinpoints “new battlegrounds and unholy alliances” where the noose tightens for selected media outlets.

Over the years, the cyclical template of censorship in Pakistan has become eerily familiar: the cost of speaking truth to power gets heavier, while freedoms peak for voices aligned with state narratives and interests. Although journalists are no strangers to hard seasons, recent times have been particularly dystopian for Pakistan’s mediascape with threats, enforced disappearances, manipulative press advisories, undeclared red lines and mass harassment.

Many maintain that journalist Arshad Sharif’s killing in 2022 combined with suffocating curbs shaped an atmosphere of fear in newsrooms. Widespread loss of trust in mainstream and legacy media was the fallout as powerful stakeholders and extremist groups moved in to exploit the situation by raising a generation of social media consumers with the purpose of amplifying their narratives, irrespective of the truth.

The counterproductive approach adopted by successive governments to force the media to buckle is a sad commentary on Pakistan’s fragile state structure; brutal suppression experienced today exposes how hard it is for the state to make peace with democratic ideals of acceptance and the coevolution of diverse opinions in a modern society.

As noted in the HRCP report, “the space for freedom of expression … can become constricted due to collusion between the state and the political forces… . In Imran Khan’s heyday… the PTI’s social media machine would specialise in targeting journalists … labelling them ‘lifafas’… .”

These tactics are tantamount to a slow slicing of media and democracy; depriving news organisations, which uphold editorial integrity, of vital advertising income — the financial ventilator in the current media minefield — is censorship at its most insidious and destructive. Worse, there have been reports that federal and provincial authorities capitulate to establishment directives to withdraw advertisements. It reeks of a synchronised demolition of independent media outlets through legal and monetary harassment to stagger authentic news broadcasting.

The establishment should know that the federation is weakened by a submissive press. Coercive policies must be abandoned for constitutional freedoms to be inviolable. Amnesty International’s latest warning that the proposed changes to the draconian cybercrime laws will strengthen the government’s control over Pakistan’s heavily monitored digital space, should also serve as a harbinger of terrible global consequences — shrinking rights can be violative of international agreements. Repression portends disaster.

Published in Dawn, January 26th, 2025