by Zarrar Khuhro at Dawn: What’s really cute, of course, is that in 2019, the situation was quite the opposite. In July of that year, Maryam Nawaz Sharif held a press conference in which she played a video of the now deceased Justice Muhammad Arshad Malik, the accountability court judge who had sentenced her father, Mian Nawaz Sharif, to seven years imprisonment in the Al-Azizia Steel Mills case. In that video, Judge Malik could be seen apparently confessing to a PML-N loyalist that he had been ‘pressured and blackmailed’ into giving that verdict.
Malik was later dismissed from service and the PML-N had hailed the video as proof that the cases against its leaders had been manipulated and as vindication of their stance that their party was being singled out and victimised. The PTI and its supporters at the time conveniently focused not on the content and implications of the video, but more on how the video had been recorded and released: “This is illegal!”; “This is blackmail”; “Why is the video not in 4k resolution?” Again, I admit I added the last one but the others are more or less genuine, if paraphrased.
That’s just the thing about justice in the land of the pure — like beauty, it also lies in the eyes of the beholder. Take the example of poor old Asad Toor — he’s a hero and a shining beacon of courageous journalism when he gets beaten for going after people you don’t like and who oppose your interests, but is a criminal and a purveyor of lies when he gets thrown into jail on trumped up charges for going after people you do like and who support your interests.
More here.
