EDITORIAL: In this season of ‘leaked’ audios and videos involving public figures has emerged a new audio clip of a 2016 conversation between the PML-N Vice President Maryam Nawaz and a party leader Senator Pervaiz Rashid, exposing what they think of journalists expressing unfavourable opinion of their then government in a TV talk show. In it, the senator can be heard referring to three senior journalists as “barking dogs” while Maryam terms their opinion as biased, saying she would take up the matter with the owner of the media house concerned. As expected, Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists has taken serious notice of the abusive language and the urge to curb freedom of expression, demanding an apology from the party leadership. Likewise, the Association of Electronic Media Editors and News Directors has condemned the language used and views expressed.

In another audio from the time she headed the Strategic Media Communication Cell at the Prime Minister’s Office — Maryam can be heard giving instructions to the staff not to release government advertisement to certain media houses. This urge to ‘manage’ the media is an obsession common to all power elites. The present government has also made several attempts — so far unsuccessfully — through overt measures, though, to put restrictions on freedom of expression. But independent media houses and journalists are still subjected to pressures by other quarters, and those refusing to fall in line made to face unpleasant consequences. As offensive as the contents of the present ‘leaked’ audio are, no less objectionable is the practice of tapping private conversations. It is an infringement on the constitutionally guaranteed right to privacy and freedom of speech. Yet it is done for use at the opportune moment to blackmail or control politicians, judges and whosoever. Who may have the capacity and the interest to eavesdrop on public figures is hardly a secret. In fact, during 2015 suo motu hearings (initiated by former CJ Sajjad Ali Shah who had taken notice of a device attached to his own phone) of the dismissal of prime minister Benazir Bhutto’s second government by president Farooq Leghari citing a phone conversation, a three-member bench of the Supreme Court headed by the then chief justice Mian Saqib Nisar, the ISI had disclosed that it had tapped as many as 6,856 telephone calls during the previous month alone. At which Justice Nisar had raised the all-important question as to under what law the spy agencies or others were tapping phones. There obviously is no such law in this or any other functioning democracy. The court had ruled that phone monitoring was against the law, and violative of the right to privacy and liberty.

There is no way of knowing if the apex court’s verdict is being respected. Most likely, the practice goes on unabated. Unfortunately, the government is not in a position to stop this illegal, immoral activity. It is about time Parliament steps up and holds an inquiry into this nasty exercise. It must be brought to an end.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2021

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