Pakistan press freedom under pressure from army

Hamid Mir knew one of the guests on his nightly television show had made a mistake the moment he blurted out the name of the country’s army chief without due deference.

“He just said ‘Raheel Sharif, Raheel Sharif’ without calling him general,” Mr. Mir says of a recent episode of his influential Capital Talk programme.

“I knew immediately the words came out it would be cut.” At a time of intense pressure on the media to cooperate with an army public relations campaign that is burnishing the image of General Sharif, channels routinely edit out or drop the sound on the mildest criticism of the military.

Mr. Mir fears that behind the pressure for self-censorship lurk “anti-democratic forces deliberately trying to undermine political institutions by giving more importance to the army.”

Leading journalists claim to have received indirect threats from army officials who warn them they are being targeted by terrorists or that their coverage is raising suspicions they have been compromised by the Indian intelligence service.

Media workers say the current unbridled support for the army comes from the need to support the institution at a time when soldiers are dying in a war against Islamist militants.

But it also reflects draconian new legal requirements placed on broadcasters. Last month, the information ministry issued a sweeping code of conduct that made it a condition of a broadcaster’s licence to not air material that “contains aspersions against the judiciary or armed forces”.

Television stations were also required to have a “delaying mechanism” on live programmes to enforce the restrictions. The media has given little attention in recent weeks to a Supreme Court investigation of well-founded allegations of corruption within the army’s property empire.

While the media enthusiastically covers stories about corruption and incompetence among civilian politicians, General Sharif receives fawning coverage.

“My worry is this completely one—sided praise, if it gets to the head of some military leaders, may lead us back to mis-adventurism, whether that’s a march on Islamabad or some sort of an attack on India,” said Abbas Nasir, a former editor of Dawn, an English-language daily paper.