Press Release
The Digital Media Alliance of Pakistan (DigiMAP) strongly condemns social media trolling of editors of Naya Daur. The DigiMAP while expressing solidarity with Naya Daur’s editors, Raza Rumi, Murtaza Solangi, and Najam Sethi, demands immediate action against the political workers involved in consistent trolling and personal attacks on the senior journalists.
The statement issued by the DigiMAP management on Thursday, states that DigiMAP stands with its editors and with all journalists in Pakistan who have been facing threats, harassment, intimidation and insults from mainstream Pakistani politicians, their supporters and armies of online trolls.
It also reiterates its firm position on citizens’ rights, freedom of speech, freedom of expression, and reminds authorities and the general public that journalism is not a crime.
In their misguided attempts to blame everyone but themselves, zealous supporters of former PM Imran Khan continue to distort facts and misrepresent statements to justify and propagate vitriolic narratives.
It is a sad state of affairs when people exercise their freedom of speech to demand that someone else be deprived of the same freedom, the statement adds.
A Twitter user whose profile shows that she is a recent graduate of King Edward Medical College Lahore, claimed that Raza Rumi, Murtaza Solangi and Najam Sethi were “inciting state violence”.
She went on to write that the three were “portraying brutal crackdown on political workers as the only solution as opposed to dialogue” and alleged that they were “urging the government to continue its various human rights abuses”.
In a subsequent tweet, she made a somewhat tangential argument by first saying that the Pakistani establishment was “known for its bad HR record” and then equating a “shut up call” with “custodial torture”.
She makes an unsubstantiated attribution once again, by claiming that the “shut up call” was to be given to a political party “having highest number of women & youth as its supporters”. It is surprising that Ms. Nawaz would equate a “shut up call” — a verbal request to ask someone to stop yelling — with a call to physical violence, or with a justification for police brutality or state-sanctioned torture.
Not only did the Twitter user and several others misconstrued the statement made by Raza Rumi and Najam Sethi in the video clip she shared, but they also manipulated the translation of Urdu words to deliberately misrepresent, instead relying on the video clip’s incorrect subtitles to make her point for her.
In the video clip circulated by social media accounts affiliated with PTI, Raza Rumi is erroneously translated as saying “such things should be dealt with by force”, when what he actually said in Urdu was “such things should be dealt with strictly” or “sternly” as opposed to “with force”.
After last week’s clashes between police and PTI supporters at Zaman Park, PTI supporters use terms like “police brutality” and “state fascism” to oversimplify the situation, and more importantly to try and deflect all blame from themselves and their leader Imran Khan. This is the only logical causation that explains why PTI troll farms found a ten-month-old video, wherein they could misconstrue statements to claim that some people were “cheering” or “calling for” something which only happened last week.
In spite of its attempts to stifle the voice, and destroy the careers, of those whom they disagree with, the political party and its supporters must understand that the rule of law is equal for everyone, and that their messianic leader has been receiving lenient treatment for quite some time — even though he would vehemently disagree.
It is a matter of record that Mr. Rumi has always opposed the “long history of state violence and brutality in Pakistan”, and that the former PM was also not only a part, but also a defender and beneficiary, of the Pakistani establishment’s high-handedness between 2016 and 2022.
After decades of practicing self-righteousness and intolerance, Pakistanis can no longer agree to disagree with each other on politics. This sad state of affairs is largely due to the continued success of the former PM’s virtue signaling propaganda, and his deliberate obfuscation of objective reality to suit his own narratives and political ambitions.
The online trolling has raised serious questions over the safety of journalists working in difficult circumstances.
It is to mention here that Naya Daur media group is an online media platform working on public interest journalism and raises voices for the voiceless people of the region and due to its critical journalism, the media platform its team often faces criticism in the government circles.
