Intellectual Dishonesty
By Dr. Misbah Azam
Phoenix, AZ

The Lal Masjid episode is still not over and with every passing day more questions are surfacing than the answers. It is encouraging that most sections of the media and the civil society are keeping the pressure on the government to get those answers which all Pakistanis – living at home or abroad – would want to know.
Once again the government is staying on its traditional course of hiding the truth and resorting to cover-ups in its usual clumsy way, as it has done before, especially after the assassination of Nawab Akbar Bugti and the reference against the Chief Justice of Pakistan. The top leadership of PML(Q), barring a few noticeable exceptions, is trying to avoid the tough questions posed by commonplace people.
However, I have to say with regret that a section of the media – especially the Urdu media is -- intentionally or unintentionally -- trying to glorify Mr. Ghazi and his actions. It is very unfortunate that some of our very senior journalists and TV talk show hosts are constantly portraying the operation against the Lal Masjid as the war between “Haq and Batil”.
For example, in a senior journalist’s column, I do not remember any mention of foreigners in the Lal Masjid but when the tape of last conversation between Mr. Tariq Azim and Mr. Ghazi was played one could hear Mr. Ghazi talking about his foreign comrades. Regretfully, the respectable journalist put a spin and called the foreigners as “kids from foreign countries”. Not only that, he started playing up in his column Mr. Ghazi’s claim about the so-called “liberal and secular extremism”. In lots of opinion pieces in the top new papers some well-known columnists argue that the Lal Masjid students did not kill anyone; all they wanted was to purge the society of the present ills. I would like those respectable writers to remember that this is not entirely true:
1) The trouble started on July 3, 2007, with some students trying to occupy a nearby government building. Within no time a fierce clash took place between the armed seminary students and security troops when some students opened fire at the Rangers during negotiations at the main entrance of the mosque after a protest demonstration by the Talibat of the Jamia Hafsa. In the firing, Lance Naik Mubarik Hussain and Lance Naik Ghulam Abbas of the Panjnad Rangers sustained multiple bullet injuries and were shifted to the Federal Government Services Hospital (FGSH). Mubarik died during surgery while Abbas was reported in critical condition.
2) Then the spokesman for the Lal Masjid administration, Maulana Abdul Qayum, told The News International (not the government agencies) on Tuesday that suicide bombers of the Lal Masjid had been granted permission to find targets on their own and strike wherever they choose. Some students of Lal Masid after a fierce gun battle with the law-enforcing agencies on Tuesday set the building of the Ministry of Environment on fire causing loss of millions of rupees to the national exchequer. Valuable vehicles of the high officials of the ministry were burnt while vehicles parked outside the building were severely.
3) Before that, the students were involved in kidnappings and attacking businesses and burning shopkeepers’ properties, depriving them of their means of bread and butter.
All this was done by the students of the Lal Masjid at the behest of the Ghazi brothers.
The government’s argument about not giving Mr. Ghazi and his comrades safe passage is understandable but to be sure more time could have been given to Mr. Ghazi to back off. The government too is to be blamed for the crisis from its beginning in early 2007.
As stated earlier, the media’s role was not all that commendatory during the crisis. Mr. Ghazi was constantly shown involved in unnecessary debates and philosophical arguments on different TV channels. The TV channels intentions could have been good but with over-exposure Mr. Ghazi became more intransigent in his demands which made Ch. Shujaat’s job of negotiations more difficult.
Sustained media pressure is very healthy since it forces the government to open up and reveal the truth about what really happened. However, the media carries a huge responsibility on its shoulders. Its members are not justified in imposing their personal likes and dislikes on the viewers at the cost of objectivity.

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Editor: Akhtar M. Faruqui
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