"these tools of the state are, by design, not intended to protect citizens, especially women and other vulnerable groups”

Disinformation again Aurat March

On March 8th 2021, thousands of women across Pakistan took to the streets for the annual Aurat March (“Women’s March” in Urdu), to coincide with and mark International Women’s Day. The Aurat March, which first kicked off in Karachi in 2018 is, according to one organiser:

“ a day for us to celebrate our femininity, to share our traumas and pain, to express ourselves as we deem fit, and to demand our right to equality, health, education, mobility, and freedom from violence.”

Emerging out of an aggressively patriarchal nation, the Aurat March has sought to be intersectional, working to make sure that voices from all different parts of Pakistani society are not only heard but amplified. Slogans at each March have tackled domestic violence, sexual assault and harassment, lack of proper access to health services for women, transphobia, attempts to silence women in public and other causes. A slogan (one of many) that has been taken up as a rallying cry by Aurat March participants "Mera jism, meri marzi” (“My body, my choice”), which “means that women want bodily autonomy and independence”, not only continues to be shared by Pakistani women, but reflects growing feminist movements across the world, particular in the Global South and North.

Given that Pakistan is, as I have just written, an aggressively patriarchal country, however, there has, inevitably, been backlash. In addition to accusations of being “foreign funded” to “destabilise” Pakistan (an accusation that has is essentially de rigueur when drawing attention to social or political failings in Pakistan or indeed the Global South in general), and criticisms from right wing commentators in Pakistan about slogans such as Mera jism, meri marzi being “vulgar”, there have been frequent hate campaigns targetting the March and its organisers across the nation.

The right-wing Pakistani journalist Ansar Abbasi - a man who faced criticism from Pakistani twitter and the country’s Minister for Science and Technology, Fawad Chaudhry, for sexualising a women’s exercise programme on the state television channel PTV - and the aggressively far right commentator and former politician Orya Maqbool Jan have come under fire for accusing march organisers and participants not just of “obscenity”, but also of blasphemy – which in Pakistan, even though it’s a demonstratively false accusation, nevertheless has now put people in danger.

On March 10th, Orya Maqbool claimed on Pakistani television that the French flag was being flown at the march, “proof” of foreign involvement. Samaa, a Pakistani Urdu-language news channel, debunked this, pointing out that the flag being flown was that of the Women Democratic Front, a socialist feminist organisation.

As has been written elsewhere, movements in Pakistan that are centre-left or left wing are accused of being foreign-funded/trained/etc on a regular basis, and have frequently targetted by the right wing and religious lobby. What Jan did here, however, was accuse march organisers of blasphemy, arguing that by flying the French flag (which, again, they weren’t) “saying you're with the country [France] that commits blasphemy at state level... These people should be charged under blasphemy law 295C (that mandates death penalty).” Not only was it a reckless thing to say, it was deliberate - Jan knew what he was doing, as being accused of blasphemy in Pakistan, whether or not one goes to court, already puts someone in grave danger.

Orya Maqbool Jan’s idiotic and inflammatory statement aside, a placard at the march that mentioned someone’s sexual assault as a child by a middle-aged qari (religious scholar), was accused of being blasphemous - again, shown to not be the case - by the head of the formerly designated terrorist group and far right political party Sipah-e-Sahaba. And finally, a video of the march was doctored, complete with misleading subtitles, to make it sound like the marchers were chanting anti-Islam slogans.

Aurat March organisers had to not only issue a statement condemning the wilful misunderstanding of the placard against sexual assault, but also realised the original video with the un-doctored audio:

The fact-checking by Samaa, Soch and others has not stopped this digital disinformation campaign from wreaking real world havoc, however. This past week saw two courts in Pakistan order the registration of First Information Reports* against organisers of Aurat Marches in Karachi and Peshawar, for, according to DAWN News, “allegedly displaying "obscene posters" and making sacrilegious remarks against religious personalities” and “allegedly making "derogatory remarks" against Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) and Hazrat Aisha and displaying "obscene posters”” respectively.

In my personal** conversations with activists involved with organising Aurat Marches in Lahore and Islamabad, being accused of blasphemy, among other false and malicious charges, has taken a heavy emotional and psychological toll on women in the movement, some of whom feel very unsafe walking in public. Some have had to drastically limit their social media presence briefly, with a couple locking their social media accounts.

As Reem Khurshid writes in her article for DAWN, “The Aurat March and the march of disinformation”, quoting digital rights activist and co-founder of the Digital Rights organisation Bolo Bhi, Farieha Aziz,

“Whether it’s the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority [Pemra], the Pakistan Telecommunications Authority [PTA], the Federal Intelligence Agency [FIA], or even the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act, 2016 [Peca], these tools of the state are, by design, not intended to protect citizens, especially women and other vulnerable groups,” she says.

And as Khurshid writes;

Social media platforms have been weaponised to peddle controversy and outrage. Public discourse is becoming increasingly polarised by the toxic invective used against political opponents. The mechanisms of the state are often used to silence dissent and victims of abuse of power. The boundaries between the margins and mainstream have blurred, with disinformation being laundered and amplified among the wider public, as traditional means of filtering out false information and conspiracy theories break down.

And, once again, women are the primary targets. The post #MeToo ‘witch-hunt’ that both naysayers and fence-sitters feared, turned out to be real — just not in the way they had portrayed it.

*Commonly referred to in Pakistan as “FIRs”, are reports prepared by the police if “they receive information about the commission of a cognizable offence” (Wiki)

Pakistan Bans TikTok. Again.

On March 11th the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority banned TikTok for the second time in five months, following a ruling by a Pakistani court. The ruling, issued by the Peshawar High Court, directed Pakistani regulatory bodies to ban the app, as it was “obscene, immoral and contrary to tradition.” Following the ruling, the PTA said on Twitter that:

In respectful compliance to the orders of the Peshawar High Court, PTA has issued directions to the service providers to immediately block access to the TikTok App. During the hearing of a case today, the PHC has ordered for the blocking of App.

When the PTA last banned TikTok in October 2020, it did so asserting that it was acting against “immoral/indecent content on the video sharing application”, though that first ban was rescinded ten days later. The government of the province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, however, has come out against the ban, with the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Minister for Information Technology, Zia Bangash, stating in late March that:

In my opinion, the judgment of the Peshawar High Court to ban TikTok is wrong. We are planning to file a review petition in this context.