- Is Mir Shakilur Rehman being used as an example?
The Lahore High Court has postponed to July 7 the hearing of the post-arrest bail petition of Jang Group head Mir Shakilur Rehman. The pastern was depressingly familiar in the case of opposition figures: the arrest by NAB and the obtaining of remand supposedly to recover evidence, and the failure on its part to establish even a prima facie case. The result so far has been the same: ultimately courts have granted basil, as the cases could not be established. Like any investigating agency, NAB would expect to lose some cases, but here it seems that it loses all.
In Mir Shakil’s case too, it is clear that the problem is not with the case, which is an old one dealing with exemptions, supposed to have been given by Mian Nawaz Sharif as Punjab Chief Minister, but with the editorial policies followed by Mir Shakil’s Jang Group. In fact, it is not just Mir Shakil who is being threatened, but all media owners attempting to follow an independent editorial policy, who are not engaging in the most cloyingly sycophantic coverage, who are being threatened. There are a number of bribes which may be offered to media owners, and while privatization has led to considerable loss of state control (in the shape of advertising), it has not entirely eliminated it. Mir Shakil’s case shows how wrathful the state can be and the coercive tools at its disposal.
So long as the state does not do what governments in the West do, which is accept criticism, it will continue to have to wild the stick. It needs to realize that media criticism is not just profitable, but is a commercial necessity, because if even one news source reveals something, it will attract the public, which will abandon all other news sources which are attempting to conceal the truth. Mir Shakil does not have an objectionable news policy because of some martyr complex, but because he has no commercially viable alternative. There is thus no point in keeping Mir Shakil behind bars.
