When there was a campaign launched about the Army helicopter crash near Lasbela last year, in which the Corps Commander was killed along with several officers and men, the ISPR issued a statement that the attempt to exploit the event had caused a wave of resentment among the entire Army. The conviction by the Faisalabad district and sessions court of a PTI worker, and sentencing him to three years in jail for ‘defaming the Pakistan Army’ should have brought some closure to the Army, but did not. For one thing, the Insaf Lawyers Forum will launch an appeal, and the case will not be closed. For another, it shows the military in a strange light, that of a victim, which is unsettling for citizens who look to it to provide the country a resolute and impregnable defence.
A more pressing issue is that while this is the first conviction of a PTI worker, there are a number of PTI leaders in the firing line, facing similar charges of criticizing the Army. These include Imran Khan’s former chief of staff Shahbaz Gill and former federal minister Azam Swati. Also facing defamation charges, though of PPP co-Chairman Asif Zardari, not the Army, are former ministers Fawad Chaudhry and Sh Rasheed Ahmad. It should be noted that they are also charged under the PECA Ordinance as well as Section 499 of the PPC.
More egregious amendments to PECA were made by the now-ousted PTI government, but were successfully challenged by the CPNE and other journalists’ organizations. The problem seems to be that the tools once used by the colonial government to keep the natives in check, in the form of anti-defamation and anti-sedition laws, are still on the books, and are hallowed by the passage of time. While further encroachments on civil rights have been fought off by civil society, the old laws remain available to governments willing to use them. While no one would dispute that reputations should not be left to be besmirched, or that national security must be sacrificed, the means to control this should not be available for use by any government which wants to impose its tyranny. One of the concomitants of such a change in the laws is for the government, and all its institutions to develop a thicker skin, because criticism may sometimes become uncomfortable for the target. It is difficult to make the target understand that that criticism is for the greater good.
