As part of its anti-terrorism campaign the Punjab government has recently been acting tough against the purveyors of religious hatred. A number of cases have been registered against prayer leaders for making hate speeches against members of religious communities different from their own. A press report has now come up with details of an ongoing drive against producers of hate literature. According to official record, as many as 452 cases have been registered in the province in the first four months of the current year. Four hundred and seventy persons were arrested during this time on account of hate material publication, and legal proceedings started in 260 cases. However, the conviction rate has been rather low: 24 guilty verdicts out of the 66 cases decided so far. The key reason is a lack of co-ordination between different components of the oversight and implementation mechanism.
There is a Muttahida Ulema Board - comprising religious scholars from different schools of thought - to examine published material for offensive content. But the board members are expected to check material specifically referred to them for the purpose. Even when they disallow something, publishers and printers are not duly notified. The press reports point out two cases wherein publishers were arrested by the police for selling hate material but released by courts. One of them took the plea that he did not know what he published was banned since there had been no government notification to that effect. A member of the ulema board, Maulana Naeemi, in fact, has claimed that some 70 books that were banned more than a decade ago have only recently been included in the list of books notified for containing hate material. Driven by a new sense of urgency the banned books list was publicized earlier this month by the home department through newspapers. In the other case, a trader from Lahore's famous Urdu Bazaar was let off the hook not because what he sold was not objectionable but because instead of the relevant authority, ie, Muttahida Ulema Board, the police had declared it hate material. And as expected, the Association of Publishers and Sellers of Islamic Books is grumbling about what it calls police acting blindly and hastily to claim credit for efficiency.
Clearly, the problem so far has been a lack of governmental seriousness about the issue. Now that necessity has brought it under focus, solutions should not be so difficult to find. One obvious step for the concerned authorities to take is to properly notify the banned books and CDs containing harmful content so that the concerned industry people as well as the police know what is to be blocked. Equally important, the ulema board is said to be considering making it mandatory for publishers to send a copy of every new book to it along with an affidavit saying it does not contain any objectionable material. That should make matters simple yet effective.
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