Flip through the latest issue of Gulf Weekly.
IT’S ONLY words, but they can get you thrown behind bars. If this doesn’t stop all those journos with a laptop who think they can hack it, nothing else will.
Of course, if you join the growing tribe of puff writers — and you get them a dime a dozen — you are as far from a jail as you can ever be. But then you are also as far from telling the truth as you can ever be! And no matter how much you huff and “puff” you’ll never ever get even close to being a real journalist. That’s the truth. Chasing the truth comes with a price. Many a brave journalist has been killed, maimed, detained or targeted for pursuing the truth in good conscience. So when a handful of politicians with an axe to grind call for journalists to be jailed, it’s time to sit up, take notice and hit back. Truth cannot be sacrificed on the altar of freedom and the right to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media — old and new alike — should be allowed to continue, unencumbered by threats, fear or other constraints.
The thought that journalists can be jailed — and are being jailed —on matters relating to their professional work smacks of vendetta and arm-twisting of the worst kind.
Instilling the fear of jail can only lead to the muzzling of the Press. And when you gag the Press with jail threats you are, over the long term, muzzling the leaders and lawmakers who are on the other side of the coin.
We of the Fourth Estate would be the first to admit that a frightened media makes a very poor watchdog and turns us into a mewling, squealing puppy. (Remember the Indian media during the hated Emergency rule under Indira Gandhi? They crawled when asked to bend to avoid being held and jailed.)
Journalists are not only marched into jail for doing their job but they also get killed, shot, wounded, kidnapped (remember Daniel Pearl?) and often harassed in their line of work. The point is, should they be jailed outside the confines of the law because of what they write as comment, simply because it annoys someone in power?
Most certainly not. So long as it does not cross the divide by way of espionage, anti-state activity or treason against the nation, corruption and untruth, then a journalist, by virtue of his job in putting things in cold print, must be afforded certain protections.
You do not make powerful enemies in other spheres of professional activity. Journalists risk making them every day of the week. The same freedoms that allow the political leadership to make statements and criticisms are applicable to journalists. You block the conduit by threat of jail and you block the pipeline to the public.
It is not the threat of jail that is worrying. It is why, in a progressive society, it should be seen by some as an artifice, an option, a brake.
The point then is, at what juncture do you start clicking the lock? And who keeps the key?
