It is impossible to have a democracy within which there is no criticism and no attempt to put right what is wrong. Any government and any authority under it would usually recognise this. On Friday, the Islamabad High Court took up the Pakistan Bar Council’s petition against the TikTok ban, and in the process questioned the controversial new social media rules and asked the PTA to review them. The said rules have been rejected by rights activists as an excuse to further censor the internet. The rules encourage a blanket block of content that criticises the government or public servants, give the PTA the right to block the online system of any platform provided by ISPs, and encourage monitoring by ISPs and social media companies — among other bizarre demands. It is in this background that IHC Chief Justice Athar Minallah’s observations are welcome indeed. The honourable CJ has said that criticism is not in any way an evil and is indeed essential to upholding the democratic rights of people. He has also noted that freedom of expression is a part of Article 19 and 19-A of the constitution of Pakistan.
It seems rather glaringly clear that the current government is extremely eager to block criticism. It is also true that in a democracy the people have the right to point out what is wrong, so that these flaws can be corrected and errors put right. If this does not happen, there can be no movement towards a better democracy and a better state. What the government can’t understand is that such social media rules are impossible to implement without essentially taking down entire sites on the internet. That is pure and simple censorship.
The honourable IHC CJ Justice Athar Minallah’s words should be taken seriously because what is the point of a democracy in which critique and dissenting opinion are not allowed? It is essential that criticism be made more acceptable in the country at all levels. Whether the excuse is ‘morality’ or the ‘national interest’, how many times must citizens give up their right to expression just because the state says so? For a government so invested in the pursuit of accountability, it would do well to heed the wisdom of the IHC CJ when he points at the obvious link between criticism and accountability. Pakistan cannot claim to be a democratic state if it insists on acting like a paranoid nanny for its citizens. Let us not forget: there is no glory or greatness in taking away people’s right to make a choice on what they wish to access and say online — while remaining within the bounds of reasonable legal restrictions.
