Two bans were lifted the other day. On the television broadcast of two former prime ministers. The one on Imran Khan was lifted through a decision of the Chief Justice of the Islamabad High Court, who ruled that PEMRA seemed to have overstepped its bounds when slapping such a ban. The ban on Nawaz Sharif, on the other hand, went away in as shadowy and arbitrary a manner as it came.
The lifting of the ban is to be appreciated. It was prudent and just for IHC CJ Athar Minallah to give that ruling. Meanwhile, it isn’t enough to merely lift the ban on Nawaz Sharif because as opposed to the other ban, it can come back again. Freedom of speech isn’t some patronage that is to be doled out or snatched away as the powers that be please.
There are no points for guessing what the ruling party’s view on the issue is. The ruling party under question being the one that runs two-thirds of Pakistan, the PTI. That the lifting of the ban on party chairman Imran Khan is justice delayed, but that a similar decision for Nawaz Sharif is unfair because the man is an absconder. It appears there can’t be a deluge big enough to hit a country that can make some politicians play nice with others.
The fact of the matter is that freedom of speech- barring what the court deems to be an indictment to violence- is an inalienable right of citizens in a democracy. And Pakistan, despite the intentions of the powers that be, is a democracy. We hope the ban on some other representatives, lower on the political pecking order, is also lifted, like those on Mohsin Dawar and Ali Wazir; a laughable demand, given how the latter is literally incarcerated, what to speak of merely being under a gag order.
