Much can be said about Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf’s decision to declare a state of emergency in my home country. In this post, I will set aside political commentary and restrict my comments here to the role that news media and new media are playing in the national crisis.
On Saturday, November 3, soon after proclaiming emergency rule in a televised address, Musharraf demanded that all cable operators stop beaming the broadcasts of all local and foreign new channels, except those of the state-owned Pakistan Television. Nearly 30 channels were promptly taken off the air. On Sunday, policemen raided the Islamabad offices of Aaj TV, a private news channel, and attempted to confiscate the channel’s equipment.
This nationwide broadcasting blackout was accompanied by sporadic efforts to cut telephone lines and jam cell phone networks, even though the telecommunications infrastructure in Pakistan is privately owned. According to VOA News, the telephone lines of Pakistan’s main independent news channel Geo TV were cut.
On Tuesday, November 6, Iftikhar Chaudhry, the ousted chief justice of the Supreme Court who is currently under house arrest, called for mass protest against the government and for the restoration of the constitution via cell phone. According to the BBC News Online report, most mobile phone services in Islamabad went down during Chaudhry’s address, prompting suspicions that they had been jammed. The jamming of cell phone networks became de rigueur since emergency rule was imposed last weekend, as the mobile connectivity of the Supreme Court, protest sites, and the homes of opposition politicians and lawyers who are under house arrest is being jammed.
That said, SMS text messaging is being lauded across the blogosphere as the savior of communication in this time of crisis. According to unofficial reports issued by mobile phone service providers, record numbers of text messages have been sent in the past five days as the medium is used to stay in touch and organize protests.
Some radio stations and Internet service providers have also been hit by the imposition of emergency rule. According to the Hindustan Times, several Internet service providers have been asked by government officials to suspend services until further orders.
The Internet continues to function normally in most places, and the websites of news media providers, including private television stations and major English-language newspapers, continue to function normally. Meanwhile, the Islamabad-based private FM radio station FM-99 went off the air after emergency was announced. For the most part, private FM radio stations–which are normally required by law to restrict their broadcasts to infotainment and are not permitted to air news content–are operating normally.
On a positive note, the government’s attempts to gag the media in the wake of emergency rule has been met with much defiance both online and via cell phone networks. Journalists, bloggers, activists, lawyers and concerned citizens throughout the Pakistani diaspora are making use of various media outlets to maintain the flow of accurate information and organize protests.
Last Sunday, I received an email from the prominent Pakistani lawyer and human rights activist Asma Jehangir. She composed the email after being put under house arrest for 90 days. Her message listing the names of several lawyers who have also been detained and denouncing Musharraf’s actions was being forwarded amongst Pakistanis with Internet access through their online networks (I received the message three times in one day from various sources). I also received information about protests against the emergency being organized in New York and Washington D.C. via email, as messages are being forwarded diligently by concerned, connected Pakistanis.
Online activity is not, however, restricted to forwarding emails to previously established mailing lists. On the social networking site Facebook, over 5000 people have joined a group titled “We Oppose Emergency in Pakistan.” The group’s homepage hosts links to online petitions, up-to-date news reports, video clips that broadcast messages by detained opposition leaders such as Imran Khan, and a lively discussion board debating the implications of Musharraf’s decision as well as the broader Pakistani political landscape. Interestingly, teenagers who normally do not get involved with or have a voice in Pakistan’s public sphere are generating much of the discussion on Facebook. Barely a day after emergency rule was declared, a Wikipedia page titled “2007 Pakistani state of emergency” was posted. The Wikipedia page continues to be updated with transcripts of Musharraf’s address to the nation, news about protests from around the country, a compilation of official reactions from opposition politicians and prominent lawyers, and links to recent news stories.
The blogosphere is also jumping with news about the state of emergency. Global Voices Online set up a special “Pakistan Emergency” page on their website, aggregating a variety of news and commentary regarding the crisis. More importantly, bloggers based in Pakistan are frequently updating their sites with news from protest sites, updates about how best to access information, the status of cell phone connectivity, and messages from political party members and lawyers who are under arrest. Regular blogger Dr Awab Alvi’s Teeth Maestro site has become the go-to blog for many diaspora Pakistanis, especially after it provided a minute-by-minute update of the unprecedented student protest at the prestigious Lahore University of Management Sciences. An anonymous group of students who claim to be opposed to “injustice and oppression” have also launched a blog called The Emergency Times, which provides daily citizen-generated reports and regular updates on the emergency situation.
Unfortunately, some blogs that normally enjoy high visibility have remained eerily silent about the crisis. For example, Metroblogging Islamabad, a blog that earned wide readership after its coverage of the Lal Masjid showdown this summer, contains few updates about on-the-ground realities in the capital. Protesters and activists who do not normally blog are turning to alternate forums to post their eyewitness accounts of protests and police brutality. The South Asian Journalists Association blog SAJA Forum, for example, is aggregating information from a variety of sources, from The New York Times to first-person narratives.
Despite all this anti-emergency activity online, Pakistanis both in the country and across the diaspora are hungry to hear their favorite news anchors and broadcast journalists weigh in on events as they unfold. BBC News Online describes how satellite dishes that can still receive transmission signals from private news channels that have been blacked out by cable operators are selling like “hotcakes.” Blocked news channels such as Geo TV and Aaj TV are also live streaming their coverage in both audio and visual formats or in the form of Youtube video clips so that citizens with Internet access continue to enjoy uninterrupted news reporting. In other words, Pakistanis on the right side of the digital divide have not been affected by Musharraf’s decision to black out news channels.
Given this scenario, designers and activists hoping to build new technologies that can foster civic engagement and community building should consider the power of mesh network options that are independent of centralized communications networks (such as cell phone transmission towers) that are dependent on the licensing mandates of potentially authoritarian governments. The fact that Musharraf chose to block television–the medium that attracts most eyes in Pakistan–should revive interest in local information dissemination options such as community radio and local newsletters.