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HomePoliticsPakistan Army is managing pre-poll process to churn out suitable result: Dawn...

Pakistan Army is managing pre-poll process to churn out suitable result: Dawn CEO

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Hameed Haroon tells BBC’s HARDTalk a ‘massive interruption in the distribution of newspapers’ was underway in Pakistan along with intimidation of journalists.

Hyderabad: Pakistan’s military establishment is selecting candidates, investigating politicians, and “decapitating” the leadership of political parties in the run-up to the 25 July election, Dawn media group CEO Hameed Haroon said on BBC’s HardTalk.

Referring to the “deep state”, which the Pakistan military establishment is commonly called, Haroon described how the pre-poll process was allegedly being influenced to bring about a result that was suitable to the army.

“There is an element of orchestration… a very large presence of Pakistani intelligence (against) anybody (who) stands in the way,” Haroon said.

In the interview, which took place before Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) leader and former PM Nawaz Sharif and his daughter and political heir Maryam landed in Pakistan last Friday for their arrest on corruption charges, Haroon insisted the pre-poll atmosphere was being “suitably managed” to bring about a result the Pakistan army would like.

“The polling will be fair, it is the pre-polling process that is (worrisome),” Haroon added.

“I think there is a preferred face of Pakistan…There are times when Imran Khan’s index goes up and down,” Haroon said, referring to the leader of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI). Former cricketer Khan is widely expected to win the elections not only because Sharif and Maryam are in jail, but because the Pakistani press and social media have openly labeled him a “ladla”, or favourite, of the Pakistan army.

Stephen Sackur, the BBC HardTalk interviewer, repeatedly asked Haroon for evidence of his allegations that “democracy was in danger” and why he believed the freedom of speech and expression was at risk in Pakistan.

Haroon said a “massive interruption in the distribution of newspapers” was taking place, that Dawn, Pakistan’s oldest newspaper, “cannot now be read in large parts of the country – in Larkana, we haven’t seen Dawn for two and a half months”.

Larkana, in Sindh, is the hometown of the Bhuttos, a town that has given the country two prime ministers, Zulfiqar and Benazir Bhutto, and from where the latter’s son Bilawal is now fighting for political prominence.

Haroon, who recently wrote an op-ed in The Washington Post alleging “an unprecedented assault by the Pakistani military on the freedom of the press”, said three media groups were especially under the scanner–Dawn, Nawa-i-Waqt, and the Geo-Jang group.

He said intimidation of journalists was rampant, adding that the names, addresses and telephone numbers of scribes and social activists were being put on social media to frighten them and persuade them to back off their criticism.

He also referred to the blocking of channel broadcasts, as happened with Geo TV earlier this year, alleging the military’s hand in it. “It is a mistaken strategy to (do this) in the run-up to the elections,” he said, pointing out that he didn’t think the army would do this “forever”.

When Sackur asked him about army spokesman Asif Ghafoor’s promise never to intimidate the media, Haroon shot back, asking why the latter, at a press conference, put up pictures of certain TV journalists and anchors and called them “enemies of the state”.

“It was almost an incitement to aggression and coercion against these people,” Haroon said

He added that the overwhelming influence of the “deep state” had prevented substantial reporting of the civil society agitation, Pashtun Tahafuz Movement (PTM), against disappearances and human rights violations, especially those targeting the Pashtun community in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan.

“It is terribly clear that instructions work…Yes there is pressure by the military not to report on the Pakhtun (another word for Pashtun) movement,” he admitted.

‘Shooting the messenger’

Dawn was said to have ruffled quite a few feathers with an interview of Sharif, published this May, where he seemed to admit the role of Pakistani non-state actors in 26/11 and criticised the military.

However, Haroon contested allegations that he had a “hotline” to the former Pakistani prime minister, which is attributed as the source of several stories Dawn had broken, including those that were seen to be damaging to the military.

The so-called ‘Dawn leaks’, he said, were not given to the newspaper by any member of the Sharif family. Instead, the newspaper obtained the information “internationally”, although it was “verified in Pakistan”.

Dating back two years, the ‘Dawn leaks’ refer to the paper’s reportage on the minutes of a confidential meeting between the government and military officials where the former reportedly told the armed forces to act against militant groups in light of the country’s growing international isolation.

“I think basically there was a civil-military narrative that went wrong, and Dawn was the messenger, and a large part of it was about shooting the messenger,” he admitted.

Retribution to the reports has allegedly manifested in the blocking of Dawn’s circulation in certain parts of Pakistan, and the transmission of its news channel in cantonment areas.

Activists and journalists have said this is part of a larger crackdown on the country’s media, which has also seen a journalist’s alleged abduction and an assault on another. There have also been reports that a blackout of Pakistan’s most popular news channel, Geo TV, in April was carried out at the military’s behest to send out a message about reportage sympathetic to Sharif.

Haroon insisted that he had “tremendous admiration” for the army, especially in the manner it had curbed militancy. However, he added, “The army has a duty to secure the country, not to browbeat the media.”

Despite Pakistan’s enormous experience with military rule, Haroon said, the Pakistani press was still capable of holding its own, unlike the “controlled democracies of east Asia”.

“Pakistan is not a militant state. Pakistanis would like to be free and if I can help I would have done my job,” he said.

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1 COMMENT

  1. There has never been a level playing field in Pakistan for the masses to participate in free and fair electoral process. Undoubtedly Dawn and similar media organizations have played an important role and providing the masses with ‘the public sphere’ where an informed discussion and decision making might take place. Those elements, which might disrupt this process may always be there and Pakistan is not an exception. However, labelling Mr. Khan as Ladla is unjust and unfair, particularly when you hear it from someone, whose own political background if closely scrutinized may not be that squeaky clean. Mr. Khan with all the shortcoming as a person and politician is not corrupt and has struggled for many years against corruption and nepotism. Whether he succeeds or not is dependent on many factors, as he is also relying on a society, where corruption, nepotism, and corrupt practices are accepted as a norm of daily life.

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