Pakistan must delete the sedition law from its statute books

Politics is messy even at the best of times in Pakistan, but it is treading bitter territory these days with an alarming uptick in the number of politicians, journalists and activists charged with sedition for airing criticism against generals, politicians, judges and clerics.

This is unacceptable in a democracy, which the country professes it is and which a remarkably popular and lasting constitution, which celebrates 50 years of its founding this year, also guarantees. Sedition carries a maximum penalty of life in prison and steep fines under Section 124A of the Pakistan Penal Code.

Pakistan’s ruling coalition led by the parties of Bhuttos and Sharifs, which have cumulatively been in power two-thirds of the time when the military has not been ruling directly, have been in recent weeks invoking the controversial Section 124A aggressively and have arrested several vocal opposition leaders and journalists.

The irony is that the only person ever in Pakistan’s history convicted of treason in a court of law was former military dictator General Musharraf.

Adnan Rehmat

This is surprising considering their own party leaders and supporters in the past have been similarly unfairly charged with sedition – including by the current opposition party of Imran Khan which was then in power.

This newfound love with the sedition law is an admission that politics of mutual tolerance and plural politics is failing badly. Some of the accused have been hauled in for criticizing military figures, implying that the cases against them have come on the instigation of Pakistan’s powerful military establishment. 

Political and electoral feuds are one thing, but the use of the sedition law against political foes when in opposition and supporting and using it against them when in power, is not only hypocritical it also reeks of vindictiveness and revenge. When politics is all about professing competing ideologies, why suppress pluralist discourse and dispensation? 

What is the sedition law, anyway? Section 124A says: “Whoever by words, either spoken or written, or by signs, or by visible representation, or otherwise, brings or attempts to bring into hatred or contempt, or excites or attempts to excite disaffection toward, the federal or provincial government established by law shall be punished with imprisonment for life to which fine may be added, or with imprisonment which may extend to three years, to which fine may be added, or with fine.”

The sedition law is a holdover from British colonialism of the India-Pakistan region designed to prevent the British monarchy’s forced subjects in the region from badmouthing the invaders and suppressing disaffection against the non-representative ruling classes. Somebody clearly forgot to tell the Pakistani political establishment that the British Raj is over.

Pakistan’s sedition law has no place in a democracy which requires free speech to flourish and to hold public and state representatives accountable. This accountability function cannot be facilitated if fellow politicians and political commentators are gagged. Admittedly, there can be limits to expression but they should be minimal and act as exceptions that prove the rule.

What is needed is opposing hate speech, not free speech even though the former is a part of the latter. The hate speech part can be tackled, as is done in functional and developed democracies, through defamation laws that require allegations against others to be proven in a court of law. Confoundingly, the Pakistani legal framework provides needless leeway in matters of defamation – and therefore indirectly allows free speech – but adds disproportionately severe shackles on freedom of expression.

This is the reason why one of the defining characteristics of Pakistan’s political history is the unhappily rich incidence of labelling political opponents, traitors. Such is the surfeit of this label that most politicians and other non-political public figures such as journalists, poets and activists labelled as traitors proudly wear the accusation as a certification of their contribution to furthering democracy. 

The irony is that the only person ever in Pakistan’s history convicted of treason in a court of law was former military dictator General Musharraf, who was tried under Constitutional Article 6 dealing with treason and found guilty by a special court set up by the Supreme Court. 

What needs to be understood in Pakistan’s context is that what is often criticized is not the military but the interference in politics by some of its generals, not the judiciary but how some of its judges undermine democracy by supporting extraconstitutional developments, not religion but manipulation of followers by clerics in the name of religion, not politics but some politicians who undermine the parliament. There should be room for the criticism of all this. 

All parties in Pakistan have unduly suffered from gagging and legal cases invoking sedition and treason with their senior leaders having spent years in jail. They must not hurt democracy through intolerance. To retain its democratic credentials, Pakistan must delete the sedition law from its statute books.

- Adnan Rehmat is a Pakistan-based journalist, researcher and analyst with interests in politics, media, development and science. Twitter: @adnanrehmat1