I will point out a few instances where, I as a viewer was disturbed by the partisanship, unprofessional attitudes, and loose ethics of the cable news industry in Pakistan. I shouldn’t say ‘in Pakistan’, because these channels were being run from the UAE where they could escape Pakistan’s taxation system. They like to profit from our country but would rather not pay taxes. Ok, I am getting side tracked here. My complaints follow:

Conduct of the Media during the CJP trial:

Cable news had their biggest moment in the spotlight during the CJP crisis. They covered a marathon event with some degree of success. Soon enough the real issues got jumbled in the heat of passion. While Musharraf had a right and constitutional duty to send the reference against the CJ to the court, no one in the media would say so. The issues of the legality and merits of the reference were run over by protests about the maltreatment of the CJ by police officials. Somewhere between Islamabad and Lahore the CJ’s rally became a long march to remove Musharraf from the presidency. Media, lawyers, and opposition interests joined hands. The government sat bewildered by the storm unleashed upon them and the citizens of the country were subjected to more legal and political bullshit than we care about. And children across Pakistan learned the usage of curse words in political slogans that were broadcast without reprive during live coverage of anti-govt. protests.

In the end the court seems to have thrown out the reference against the CJ on technicalities without discussing the merits of the allegations. No one cares about why the merits were not discussed. The government was on a backfoot and needed to be attacked on other fronts. Journalism be damned.

Conduct of the Media during the Lal Masjid Crisis:

The country went through a traumatic experience during the whole Lal Masjid affair. For two days before the storming of the compound, Talat Hussain on his “Live with …..” show kept asking for a military operation to rid the city of the menace of the terrorists holed up inside Lal Masjid. He kept exhorting government to establish its writ by comparing the scenario to the ongoing operations in waziristan. On the eve of the operation, as military action seemed inevitable, he did a complete turn around and began pleading for more negotiations and sheding crocodile tears for these ‘apne hi loge’. No matter what or where, he thought it prudent to take a position opposing the government even if it were opposing positions on same argument. The same was the case with the “Bolta Pakistan” duo. One day we got recorded calls from so called callers who wanted an operation. The next day, exhorted by false accounts of the magnitude of deaths they began their own campaign to malign the government. Playing on the passions of the traumatized people, the media took us all on an emotional roller coaster. The government found itself in a loose-loose situation. It was damned if it did, and damned if it didn’t.

In preperations for the operation, the military and para-military forces cordoned off the area of operation to prevent collateral damage. The media was also pushed behind this cordon. This was a military operation but the media deemed it proper to give live commentary on the troop movements around the compound. They alerted their audiances, could this include the terrorists and sympathizers, to the movement of vehicle types and the nature of their occupants. We sitting at home knew beforehand when tear gas was about to be fired, or commandoes about to be deployed to place breach explosives by the walls, or where to look for snipers. I had already written of this concern earlier, read it here, so I’ll digress.

Nothing seems to be off-limits to the cable news camera man in Pakistan. And the bloodhounds followed wounded, soldiers from the madrassa to hospitals. There they broadcast to the audiences scenes of wounded soldiers and militants alike, bleeding, screaming, spasming, and writhing in pain. Decency and posterity be damned when you can show death on live TV. We call this news in Pakistan. Only the threats of fellow of the fallen soldiers and doctors got them out of the hospitals.

In the aftermath, the role of these so called journalists was worse than tabloid sleaze. The government took international and local media into the madrassa compound to give them an idea of the scale of the dug-in resistance and the ferocity of the firefights. Instead of realizing or appreciating the tremendous difficulty of the operation, a third of the commando platoon of 64 ended up as cassualties, dead or injured. These flagbearers of truth were angry that the government had taken away the dead bodies and washed away the blood from the floor. Talat Hussain was clearly miffed about not finding a drop of blood. Cameramen and reporters  from the three most notorious channels were acting more like blood hounds and less like journalists. Geo finally beat Ary and Aaj to the punch when one of their cameramen found a small puddle of bloody water that had escaped the sanitation people. Look mommy, blood. We all know people had died in there. They died from bullets and shrapnel piercing their bodies. Many people bled in that bloody Red mosque and the adjacent madrassa. Sight of blood and flesh would not have added to the story. But cable news with its ratings and sponsors needed more. They needed gore.

With the operation cleanup over, the media decided to latch onto conspiracy theories and rumors about the number of dead and missing and presented them as fact to the naive viewers. For weeks on end the reported thousands of girl students dead in the masjid. They called on the government to produce 1500 missing girls. In the end, when it became clear that there were three missing people, they just gave up on the story and moved onto the next front. No appology for misleading the people. Not a word about looking at their standards for cross checking stories. None of that. It was during a question session on the topic of hundreds of girls missing from the madrassa that federal minister Ijaz-ul-haq got emotional and teary-eyed. He was immediately made a butt of jokes on GEO programming. In hindsight, is it possible that he was distressed by the false accusations to the point of break down? In fact the whole government seemed verging upon nervous breakage. All this while, the malicious media med went on merrily spreading conspiracy theories and innuendo as fact.

Conduct of Media outside the Election Commission of Pakistan:

The venue of the ECP was chosen for a confrontation with the government because it would provide great action due to proximity to Supreme Court and presence of international media. Previosly, opposition lawyers standing in the courtyard of the Supreme Court had already threatened to burn the ECP down if Musharraf’s nomination papers were to be accepted. The lawyers and media then colluded to engage the police in a fight and then portray them as aggressors. It took keen observation to notice that the lawyers had stuffed their coat pockets with stones to missile on the police.

A particularly dangerous tactic used by the media was to block the exit of the ECP, thus effectively holding the Prime Minister and various members of the cabinet alongwith the Election Commissioner hostage inside the building. The first one to brave breaking the cordon was the CM Punjab. With the media goons jumping all around and in front of his car, one guy got a foot run over by the car as it tried to get away. We could see on cameras the mercedes sedan surrounded on all four sides by journalists banging on the windows. That the driver got away without killing aby of these fuckers is testament to his skill. In the aftermath The Islamabad bureau chief of Aaj News, a handiwaal by the name of  tariq Chaudhry, kept repeating the lie that the Car carrying the Chief Minister Punjab had just run over and crushed ten journalists who had been blocking its exit from the Election Commission of Pakistan. Aaj and Geo kept harping about ten journalists having been run over for almost an hour.

Conduct of Media after Emergency:

In the aftermath of the emergency being declared, all newscasters were clearly more subdued due to reality of tougher laws. Still that did not stop all media outlets from running with the rumor of a counter coup against Musharraf from within the Army. This being the wet dream of people who would like to see this institution self destruct and get out of their way. The cable news ran this on their tickers and kept announcing it for hours without giving credibility or even equal airtime to the government’s repeated clarifications to the contrary. Investors panicked and the stock market free fell for the first time having weathered months of this special interest created crisis.

I couldn’t care lesser that these channels are off air. If news means spreading malicious rumors and innuendo masquerading as fact, then I am better of uninformed and forming my own views. What we have wth the case of GEO, ARY, and AAJ is a pattern of abusive use of the liberty a press card affords a journalist in a free society. Freedom without rules and laws will lead to choas. And that sadly is even better ratings.

But fear not my chotas. I will be paying them regular visits to steal business secrets and will frequently pollute the sitting area with brain farts. Its a plan then. Down with these hoity toity Tea House people then. You may go there and look around, you may even sample the goods, but you better not enjoy, and if you do enjoy, you better not let me find out. Warna. Warna murr jai ga aapka saxxy chaiwalah. hai

And that is what Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry and his merry court did for months. The ran amok. They put thousands of existing cases on the back burner and decided to become a thorn in Musharraf’s side. Their interests spanned all issues of media interest. If a story was on the news media one day, the court was taking suo moto notice of it on the second day. Be it the flooding and consequent traffic jams on Karachi roads after heavy rainstorms, price of tomatoes, shutting down of terrorist breeding madrassas, and what not. If cable news thought an issue was inflammatory enough, the court thought it was worthy of their interest. The court was infact trying to be popular with the ignorant masses who are swayed by these media hyped issues. I will go in detail of this false hype in the next posting. Seeking popularity by activism is the domain of the politician, not the court.

That president Musharraf ward it off for as long as he did is credit to him. That the ex-Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry, brazenly led his motley crew of judges down the path of direct confrontation with the president shows his foolhardiness. Still, I think the president is not without blame in this year of crisis. He has managed to go back on too many promises and estranged too many of us in the silent majority who supported him through the last eight years. We have sat on the sidelines and wondered what exactly kept him from doing the needfull to move the country towards his promised land. Defeats and back paddling on one issue after the other has confused and disheartened the moderate majority of Pakistanis who want a prosperring and peacefull Pakistan. The biggest blow came with the ill advised attempt at removing the CJ. It has been a downward spiral since then. Again, I will compile these issues in a detailed chargesheet against Musharraf here in a post to follow.

And here we are. Two wrongs have made a massive wrong. Sadly, it seems there is not one person of honor and integrity left in the higher echlons of Pakistan. What we have is either dumb asses at best, or manipulative opportunists at worst. Oh, and I told you so.

I wish the government had allowed him to come. They should have tried him in the courts under the existing and, even, new cases. They should have tried him in the media as a habitual liar and cheat. They should have destroyed his political career. They should have imprisoned him. Instead, they have decided to ship him off.

This may just turn out to be a further ratcheting up of the confrontation between the apex judiaciary and the Presidency. Should the CJ take notice of this situation in detriment to the government, imposition of martial law would become almost a neccessary evil.

Chalo issi khushi mein special doodh patti for everyone. Ji aaya noo.

A PIA Boeing 777-200ER, flight number PK786, has landed at Islamabad International Airport. Onboard is Mian Nawaz Sharif. Ghundas like Liaqat Baloch, Raja Zafarulhaq, and the seditionist Javed Hashimi have been arrested. While Maulana Diesel Fazalur Rehman has been placed under house arrest. The couple of hundred idiots who came to welcome the bald vulture are being tear gassed on roads leading to the airport. Serves them right. Lets see, where Mian gidh is taken.

There are some reports that a Boeing 737 is sitting fueled and crewed, ready to deliver Nawaz Sharif to Saudia. It would be ironical if this is the same B737 that Mian ji had covetted so much alongwith other chumps who have been prime ministers of Pakistan, until Musharraf finally, gave it back to PIA permanently.

UPDATE: Well, somethings have become clearer. Naeja is not being deported outside. Instead he has been arrested on arrival as most thought would happen and is on way to jail in a helicopter.

Pakistani media whores have screamed at the slightest restriction in access to the battlefield. But such access should be granted as a privellege dependent upon their common sense. Geraldo Riviera, reporting for Fox News during the US invasion of Iraq, was removed from the country and sent back immediately following one instance of allegedly revealing the positions of some US troops by drawing a map on the sand. Reporters from Aaj and Geo have gone miles beyond that kind of revealing. They have pointed out specific buildings and types of troops. They have reported on troop moments that took away the element of surprise and endangered the troops. They have pointed out government tactics and operations.

I probably shouldn’t say this but the reporters did point out the fact that commandos were laying explosive charges along the walls of the madrassa and the firing from all directions on the madrassa was just a diversion. Could this have caused the incident where the SSG CO was critically wounded along with another officer. I’ll leave this investigation to the authorities. But with the militants being in constant telephonic contact with media and their supporters outside, this hypothesis does not seem a stretch.

At this point the terrorists have better intelligence about the movements of the troops outside, than the troops do about the terrorists inside the buildings.

I am not going to let the military get off scott free here either. They should have clamped down on this the first time this sort of thing happened. Where the fuck is ISPR. Isn’t there one officer who has seen this sort of coverage and felt uneasy about it. The men who fight under one are the officer’s responsibility. How can everyone involved be playing such a loose game here. This sort of carelessness by the media might end up costing many lives of the troops and the people inside when and if an operation is launced to enter the madrassa.

Media should be free to report on the event, but not on the tactics and operations of the troops trying to put an end to this. None of this reporting is adding anything to the home viewer. All they are doing is acting as the eyes and ears of the terrorists inside.

Eteraz pointed this out and here is a transcript of the Dialogue for those who don’t understand Urdu or Punjabi.

• Policewoman: (as she pushes the veiled mullah into the room) Ok now take this veil off.
• Madrassa student 1: (complaining) You can’t do this to her. She is our aunty and stays veiled even in front of woman.
• Madrassa student 2: Let our aunty go please, she is not well.
• Policewoman: Shut up you bat-like thing or I’ll give you a slap.
• Mullah under burqa: (sings his appeal) Let me stay under the veil, don’t lift the veil; If the veil is lifted the secret will be out; Allah I repent, Lord I repent
• Policewoman: (she has obviously had enough of this) Stop this bullshit, I have stomach cramps as it is. (She unveils the mullah and then discovering the mullah calls out for a male officer)

These blasphemy laws have been proven in many cases to have been used to persecute non-muslims and Muslims alike. Many times the accusers have used these laws to exact revenge from enemies through law or mob-lynching. That second aspect is most worry some as there are many instances where people have been accused and lynched by mobs within minutes in the middle of roads. The passage of equal protection against blasphemy would have meant, religious minorities could just as well accuse their Muslim or non-muslim antagonists of blasphemy. They’ll be able to dish out as well as they have been taking.

Such a law would protect the remains of our Buddhist past as sacred, and prevent the destruction of Buddhist and Hindu statues and shrines from destruction at the hands of wannabe but-shikans(one who smashes idols). Prof. Adil Najam noticed one such instance of the destruction of our Buddhist heritage.

Instead of discussion, Bhandara was booed by the mullahs of the MMA opposition parties, and received a verbal thrashing from Sher Afgan. ‘This is the parliament of an Islamic state, not a secular one. No one can dare to present a bill here which hurts the sentiments of Muslims,’thundered Sher Afgan. Bhandara’s protestations that the bill would not hurt the sentiments of any Muslims, butwill only seek to protect the sentiments of non-muslims similar hurt were lost among the boos and brays from the parliamentarians. With no support from either the government or the opposition, the motion was rejected by the speaker.

Later, the MMAs’ bill of having Apostasy declared a crime punishable by death, was sent to committee after it received no objections from the government.

Curiously, the applicability of the death penalty for apostasy is going to be based on the sexual maturity of the accused. Thus, the punishment will be available for female offenders beginning at the age of sixteen and male offenders at eighteen. years old. I guess, when it comes to arbitrary laws this is as good as any other criterion. They certainly couldn’t have used a mental maturity test for this as that would have absolved the whole country of culpability. I haven’t yet found a report of any provisions for dealing differently with accused deemed mentally deficient. No insanity defence it seems.

There are provisions for those who repent. First time offenders may be forgiven by the court if the offender repents. Second and third time offenses may be punishable by two year jail term. Death upon the dumb-ass who commits the offence a fourth time. Women are treated differently, and in this case with a lighter final sentence. No death penalty for the serial apostate. A fourth offence shall earn her an indefinite sentence till she is rendered completely subservient.