By Sardar Khan Niazi
Promoting tolerance and fostering acceptance of diverse opinions has been a challenging task in our country. Due to increasing mobility, people have more and more opportunities to interact with other groups’ members. Consequently, there have been incidents of escalating group conflicts. Political parties can play an important role in facilitating and helping to resolve conflict by taking into account the interest of the people and the country. Disputes can be resolved through negotiating and accommodation. Nobody can ignore a violent attempt to hurt physically or kill a political leader irrespective of the difference of opinion with him.
Addressing an important press conference in Lahore, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif PM condemned the assassination attack on PTI Chairman Imran Khan and shared about canceling a presser that he was supposed to address following his return from China the same day. The prime minister extended his wishes to Imran Khan and others injured in the attack for a speedy recovery and prayed for the victim who was shot dead in the attack. It is good news that Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has also reversed the ban imposed by the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA) on television channels from airing Imran Khan’s speeches. Believing in democratic norms and the constitutional right of freedom of expression is always welcome.
However, the acts of violence, blocking roads, and closure of national highways by PTI workers for the last two days were worrisome.
Because of the closure of the roads, people faced extreme hardship and were unable to reach their destinations; the patients could not reach hospitals because roads and highways were blocked. The leaders of political parties should change the thinking of their party members and advise them to engage in a peaceful protest. They must tolerate the right of others to dissent and must respect other groups that disagree with them. They must promote values of democratic life; tolerance, moderation, compromise, and respect for opposing points of view. Without this deeper culture of accommodation, democracy cannot be stable. It is simply difficult to teach these values; they must be experienced through practice. Only unity can cut across forms of political, tribal, linguistic, religious, and other identity groups. Democracy cannot be stable if people only associate with members of the same religion or identity. When people of different political, religious, and ethnic identities come together based on their common interests, society becomes richer and more tolerant. Across the country, disinformation is spreading and becoming a more complex phenomenon based on emerging techniques of deception. Disinformation undermines human rights and democratic norms, but counter-disinformation measures also have a prejudicial impact on human rights and democracy.
The concept of disinformation refers to false, inaccurate, or misleading information designed, presented, and promoted intentionally to cause harm to opponents. Political parties need the commitment to deal more effectively with this spiraling phenomenon.
Disinformation also threatens freedom of thought, the right to privacy, and the right to democratic participation, as well as endangering a range of economic, social, and cultural rights. It also diminishes broader indicators of democratic quality and upsets citizens’ faith in democratic institutions by not only distorting free and fair elections but also fomenting digital violence and repression.
At the same time, as government and opposition parties start to confront this issue more seriously, it is apparent that many of their counter-disinformation initiatives also sit uneasily with human rights and democratic standards.
In fact, by promoting positive engagement with each other and making their leaders more accountable and responsive, they can strengthen citizens’ respect. It is high time for positive thinking to avert the prevailing chaos forever in the country. Free and fair elections can protect the well-being of the people.
