The PTI government may receive valid criticism over a number of undeniable performance shortfalls ranging from governance to the state of the economy but its track record for suppression of free speech is perhaps the most unfortunate hallmark of its tenure so far. The latest example of this is the 10-year ban slapped on Olympian Rashid-ul-Hasan by the Pakistan Hockey Federation (PHF) for his alleged ‘offensive criticism’ of Prime Minister Imran Khan, using ‘abusive language’. According to Mr Hasan, all he said was that Mr Khan had not kept his word about putting Pakistan Hockey back on track if he came to power and that it was unlikely he would not be able to do anything meaningful for the game. It is indeed ironical that the very statement for which Mr Hasan is being penalized will probably turn out to be true as the ban on a gold medalist hockey player will disallow him from contributing to the game through coaching and advice to younger players. Pakistan used to be one of the most formidable field hockey national teams in the world, having won 20 official titles that include three gold medals in the Olympics. Unfortunately, those glory days are now over as the sport has been in a steady decline in quality and performance over the past two decades, which is all the more reason to inject some much-needed human capital in the form of veteran PROFESSIONALS into the game to lift it out of the doldrums.
This ban can be viewed in a much wider context as well where the country is being run by a regime that is so thin skinned that it cannot digest even the most trivial and lightest of criticisms without childishly reacting in an unnecessarily harsh manner. It seems that after muzzling the press and media effectively through a concentrated effort at forcing newspapers and television channels to self-censor, the same treatment is being meted out to other critics, ones who are simply expressing a personal opinion in an inoffensive manner. It is no wonder then that he has hired a team of mouthpieces whose sole purpose is to berate his opponents round the clock.
