Horns are locked between the Pakistan government and the country's largest publishing house in the fiercest confrontation seen here between the state and the press. 

While the balance of evidence weighs in favour of the Jang Group of Newspapers, the might of the state is visible in the fact that several Jang group magazines have had to stop publication, while its daily papers The News and Jang are down to skeletal sizes, due to their newsprint stocks being barred from reaching the presses. The Group has filed a Constitutional Petition before the Supreme Court, up for hearing on Monday, Feb 1, pleading that the government’s actions against it have been malafide and infringing upon the freedom of the press. 

The petition follows the Group’s unexpected decision last week to go public with the government’s efforts to intimidate it and bring it ‘into line’ – it is ‘blazing away with all that it has’, as one columnist described the Group’s departure from a long established policy of pragmatism and caution. ‘’I’ve been pushed to the limit,’’ says a visibly disturbed Mir Shakeel. 

‘’Pushed to the limit by what they’ve done to my ‘child’, Jang, and to journalistic freedom. I can take personal abuse, but this is too much. I’ve begged them over the last seven months (to stop the pressure) but there’s no relenting. I was afraid to take this step, and I’ve taken it unwillingly. It is difficult to stand up to state power. Anything can happen… even my life is in danger’’ The tension had been building up since last year, particularly July-August 1998, coinciding with Nawaz Sharif's announcement of the controversial Constitutional Amendment 15 (the 'Shariat Bill') - as well as the planned launch of Geo, a Dubai-based South Asian satellite channel backed by the Jang Group. 

''The government feels that the Jang Group is a monster in the making, with its move into the electronic media challenging the official monopoly on truth,'' explains The News Senior Editor Imran Aslam, who has been supervising Geo's development. The government's total control on the electronic media is a major hindrance to the freedom of expression and information in this developing South Asian nation of over 130 million, where only about 30 per cent of the population is functionally literate. 
With these literacy figures, the Jang Group's virtual monopoly on the print media - it is estimated to publish some 55 per cent of all reading material in Pakistan - has long made it the most influential and widely read newspaper group in  
Jang is the largest Urdu language paper in the world with an estimated print run of 800,000  (eight hundred thousand) from several major cities in Pakistan, as well as a daily bi-lingual edition from London. In comparison, the English language papers, often been described as having an influence far beyond their circulation, can claim daily print 

runs of not more than 40,000. Although The News claims a circulation of 100,000 with its three editions from , Karachi and Islamabad, this figure could well mean ‘readership’ and not the print run, since each newspaper can safely be said to reach more than one reader, in a country where the average household size is eight to twelve people. Aslam brushes aside Information Minister, Senator Mushahid Hussain’s claim that the Jang Group was ‘blackmailing’ the government because of its refusal to allow the Group to move into the electronic media. ‘’We don’t need government permission,’’ states Aslam. ‘’Geo is being operated by an off-shore company.’’ 

What Geo does need to run, however, is money. Lots of it. And by hitting what Aslam describes as the Jang Group’s ‘milch cow’, the government has made sure that the Group is too entangled in financial matters to even think about moving ahead with Geo. The pressure tactics include freezing the Group’s bank accounts and stopping its consignment of imported newsprint at the port gates –2,000 (two thousand) reels that were duly cleared by customs authorities. The move has reduced Jang publications to skeletons, while several weekly publications in Urdu and English have had to be entirely suspended. Newsprint is a rare commodity in Pakistan, a country which imports rather than manufactures it. Private import is restricted, with publications allowed a 'quota' of newsprint according to their print run, as stipulated by the Audit Bureau of Circulation (ABC), a government agency that certifies circulation figures. Newspapers have traditionally inflated ABC circulation figures, allowing them to import more newsprint than needed. The surplus is profitably sold in the black market - a side-trade that practically all publication houses indulge in, with the authorities traditionally looking the other way. With commercial newsprint importers paying a ten per cent duty and sales tax on newsprint, and newspapers paying only five per cent, the difference becomes the market rate for selling newsprint in the black, explains one senior finance manager. In December, the FIA (Federal Investigating Agency) conducted several raids against largest paper market, Rehan Paper Mart in Karachi, and its director picked up. He was formally charged on Dec 27 1998 for illegally purchasing newsprint against but attempts to implicate the Jang Group in these cases came to nothing. 

‘’Everyone sells newsprint, but it just so happens that the Jang Group has not been doing this, at least in recent years,’’ says a senior officer. ‘’This could well be the unstated reason why the newspaper associations haven’t come out in full support of Jang,’’ speculates Imran Aslam, while conceding that some proprietors have been involved in attempting to mediate between the government and the Group. Since August, various income tax notices began being served on the Jang Group, and all these cases were transferred to a zone which works under the Accountability Cell headed by Senator Saifur Rehman, and which handles the cases of Benazir Bhutto, Asif Zardari and other opposition leaders. ‘’They re-opened and activated all dormant cases of the Jang Group,’’ complains Mir Shakeel. 

In October, the government served the Group with tax notices totalling over 720 million rupees (about USD 13 million). The move was followed by freezing the Group’s bank accounts and seizing its stores of newsprint. The case went to the Income Tax Appellate Tribunal, which ruled in favour of the Group but the harassment has continued. Between Nov 25 and Dec 22 1998, 25 (twenty five) notices were served on the Jang Group for various offences, reported its publications. On Dec 22, a demand for approximately PKR two billion in tax arrears was made against the Group. ‘’They are trying to make it an administrative and tax issue rather than the freedom of expression,’’ says Mir Shakeel. ‘’Why don’t they file cases of tax evasion against Nawaz Sharif?’’ asks People’s Party Senator Aitzaz Ahsan, pointing out that the prime minister paid no more than PKR 477 (four hundred and seventy seven) in taxes last year, while Senator Saif has paid zero income tax. ‘’If the Jang Group is in tax default, the obvious question is, why was that not left to be sorted out in the normal way?’’ says prominent human rights activist and former editor of The Frontier Post Aziz Siddiqui. ‘’Even defaulters have the right to contest a reassessment. Why was the punishment meted out ahead of the due process in terms of freezing bank accounts and blocking newsprint?’’ Last Monday, matters came to a head with the first of an ongoing series of front page advertisements in Jang publications exposing the government's attempts to bring them in line, including demands to remove 16 senior journalists and support it on various policy matters like thecontroversial 15th Amendment ('Shariat Bill') and its handling of the law and order situation. The advertisements were followed on Thursday by an even more dramatic and unprecedented development: the playing of audio tapes of conversations, mostly between Mir Shakeel and Senator Saifur Rehman. Containing explicit and implicit threats to and demands from the Jang Group, the tapes have caused a major embarassment to the government, which has been unable to categorically deny that these demands and threats were made. 

Instead, there was a feeble suggestion by Minister for Information, Senator Mushahid Hussain on Thursday that a five-member committee be set up, including leaders of the house and opposition in the Senate, and journalists, to ascertain whether or not the Jang Group was being victimised by the Government. But many like Aziz Siddiqui believe that this suggestion is an eyewash. ‘’There should be nothing for any ad hoc committee to negotiate on the matter of tax claims – there are tribunals for the purppose. The punitive acts should be immediately withdrawn so as not to prejudge the legal process.’’ At a charged meeting at the Press Club on Jan 31, attended by representatives of NGOs, bar associations, journalists bodies and trade unions, prominent lawyer Khalid Ranjha pointed out that only two institutions have been left to withstand the government in Pakistan: bar associations and the press. ‘’The action against the press has started. It is the turn of the bar associations on Feb 27th, when the High Court Bar elections will be held. There will be an attempt to manipulate the results,’’ he predicted, pledging the support of bar associations throughout Pakistan for the journalists’ cause. And the present cause, it was resolved, is one that pertains to all of society and to democracy as a whole. 

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