The PM’s day
January 20th, 2012
The appearance of a sitting prime minister before a court is not a usual event. Yet accompanied by his carefully picked counsel, Aitzaz Ahsan, and a bevy of leaders from the PPP and other parties, Mr Gilani appeared in the contempt case with dignity, signalling that despite the allegations to the contrary, his government indeed respected the judiciary and was eager to work within the constitutional framework. An unruffled Mr Gilani told the court that he had not written the letter to Swiss authorities, as the president enjoyed immunity under both the law of the land and international law. This of course is a point many experts agree on.
While many had expected — or even hoped for — fireworks in the court and a showdown of some kind, this did not happen. Aitzaz Ahsan, who took the line he has taken before, that the government should write to Swiss authorities but that the president enjoyed immunity, reiterated this stance. His emphasis that this provision came with the post of Head of State and was in no way intended to protect Mr Asif Ali Zardari alone, should help clear an environment filled with conjecture that the government’s reluctance to write the letter is based on a desire to protect a single individual. The point raised by the court that the president needs to seek immunity, which is not available to him automatically, is one that Mr Gilani and Mr Ahsan will need to examine over the coming days. For now, the case has been adjourned till February 1, after the court granted a request from the prime minister’s counsel to study the matter. We will need to wait then till next month to see how matters proceed. But for now, one could say that things may become relatively calm. The law is holding sway, and this is most important of all, given the overall need of our country.
Certainly, General Pervez Musharraf’s NRO was a bad law. But what is most important right now is that the Constitution be respected, equilibrium restored between institutions and the tensions that have built be dissipated so that governance can proceed smoothly.
Death of a journalist
January 20th, 2012
Words — whether spoken or written — have become one of the most dangerous commodities in our country, as the threat for those who live off them grows. The cold-blooded killing of journalist Mukkaram Khan Atif, proves once more just how acute this threat is. We live in a country which has been declared the most dangerous place on Earth for media professionals by international monitoring groups. Twenty-nine journalists have died since 2004, with eight murdered in 2011 according to the Paris-based Reporters Sans Frontieres. And now, Atif joined them in the grave.
The journalist was shot by two hooded gunmen while he was offering prayers at a Charsadda mosque and the responsibility for his death has been claimed by the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). The motives are unclear; the TTP may have been angered by some piece of reporting by the journalist, who worked from Mohmand Agency for both the Voice of America and a local television channel. Or he may have been targeted simply because he also worked for an organisation with American links. It is hard to understand how the militant mind operates, but easy to see the tragedy that has befallen another family because extremists in our country remain able to act without any check on their activities, engaging in games of murder as and when they please. The failure to get to the bottom of killings such as that of Saleem Shahzad’s in May last year will have only emboldened them. The judicial commission examining his death has come up with no motive and could not point to the culprits.
It is also clear tribal journalists are at special risk. The organisations these brave men work for in remote, lawless areas which few others can reach, must do more to protect them. Compensation doled out to families is not enough. The state too needs to act so that information can continue to reach people and the voices of journalists are not muffled by guns again and again.
Saying no to SOPA
January 20th, 2012
Surfing the internet was all but impossible on January 18 without being bombarded with messages about SOPA — the Stop Online Privacy Act that the US Congress wants to pass. Wikipedia shuttered its site for the day while companies like Google and Amazon posted messages urging people to campaign against the bill. Critics argue that the bill is unduly draconian since, in a quest to stem the tide of intellectual copyright theft, it hands private companies the right to censor the internet. Their fears are justified. So sweeping is the language of SOPA that it grants the holders of intellectual copyrights the ability to shutter down non-American websites that they claim are pirating their material. No court would be required to adjudicate the matter; the companies’ word would be enough. The bill also gives payment processors like PayPal and content providers like YouTube the power to shut off services to any site they consider to be engaged in piracy. So long as they do this in “good faith” they cannot be held liable for their actions. The bill is even more odious considering the fact that these actions can only be taken against foreign websites and not those operating out of the US. Right now, the internet is controlled by the US-based Internet Corporations for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) and regulatory oversight is provided by the US government. The system has worked well because ICANN is generally considered to be apolitical and fair to other countries. If SOPA passes, however, it will show how precarious an arrangement this is as the US will effectively be able to shut down websites of other countries without proving just cause.
Piracy is a real problem that badly hurts the US economy but SOPA is not the answer. So vast is the internet and so difficult to monitor, that innovate solutions are needed to counter piracy. When Napster threatened to bring the music industry to its knees, Apple stepped in with its pay-per-song model that revived the fortunes of record companies. Similar solutions, not totalitarian legislation, are needed to tackle piracy.