Singer complains of harassment

A popular folk singer in Pakistan's predominantly ethnic Pashtun-populated North West Frontier Province (NWFP) has complained of mounting police harassment, culminating in a recent raid on his house, during which police beat and arrested his brother and two sons without preferring any charges. Gulzar Alam believes that it is all part of the government's move to ban traditional arts. "We are too weak and vulnerable," Alam told to IRIN from NWFP's provincial capital, Peshawar. "They [authorities] are harassing us to pay them bribes," he said. Alam's harassment underscores a series of measures applied by the provincial authorities to curb freedom of expression after the fundamentalist Islamist coalition of Muttahida Majlis-e Amal or United Council of Action (UCA) formed the government last year in a historic victory. Such measures included a ban on huge film advertisment billboards depicting women, as well as the symbolic burning of thousands of videos and audiocassettes as a means of curbing obscenity. A few months ago, the government ordered the closure of the musicians' market in Peshawar's centuries-old Dabgari Bazar, an action which local observers believe will deprive hundreds of artists of their livelihoods, and might force scores of female performers into prostitution. "Some people in the government, such as the police, are misinterpreting the anti-obscenity polices," Alam said, adding that the current Islamist-led government in the province had vowed to end obscenity, and law enforcement officials were trying to ban all art forms such as films, theatre, dance and music. According to Alam, some 25 policemen broke into his house on 10 April without any search warrants, and took away his 10- and 14-year-old sons, as well as his brother, subsequently releasing them after detaining them for a day. In January, he was beaten and arrested by police while singing at a wedding party. Alam left Peshawar after that incident for the southern port city of Karachi, but then returned because he had "decided to stay back and fight this injustice". But government officials take a different view. "There is no harassment. Our government has not stopped any musicians from playing," Raja Fais Zaman, the NWFP minister for culture, told IRIN, "but we are not allowing any female singers from other provinces to perform here." He strongly denied assertions that the government's actions were destroying the livelihoods of artists. "We don't want to take bread and butter from the artists, but we will not allow vulgarity or obscenity," he said. Zaman noted, however, that the government would form a committee to review the scripts of plays to be performed at theatres in Peshawar, pointing out that his number-one priority was to revive theatre in the city. "I want to make sure that all singers are respected and no police officials are allowed to humiliate them. No obscene action, dialogue or other vulgarities should happen. Even Americans don't like that," he asserted. Meanwhile, Afrasiab Khattak, the head of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, told IRIN that some elements of the provincial government disliked Alam for popularising the liberal, secular and democratic messages of modern Pashtun poets. "It has become a pattern, and there is a systematic campaign of harassment," he said, adding that the authorities wanted to make an example of Alam to discourage others from emulating him. Khattak asserted that the harassment was not confined to the urban centres. "In villages, the mullahs have banned music at weddings and are discouraging the celebration of any traditional festival," he said. Whereas experts believe that the Islamic nation's constitution grants citizens the right of expression, Khattak maintained that religious extremists had never been famous for respecting the constitution. "They are out to impose their agendas in extra-constitutional ways," he said. He explained that such efforts were not the same as those of neighbouring Afghanistan's former hardline Taliban rulers, who banned music, television and photography. In Pakistan, by contrast, there was "an effort at conservatising society methodically".