The “rusted sword” of the Press and Publication Ordinance of 1963 has finally been buried. It is now time to dispense with another unsavoury legacy of Martial law.
We refer here to the West Pakistan Publication of Books Ordinance, 1969 (WPPBO). This obnoxious ordinance was promulgated during the dictatorial regime of Yahya Khan and has remained on the state books for twenty long years. During this time, it has been ruthlessly used to harass and often imprison publishers and force them to toe the government line.
This ordinance pretends to protect “the integrity and cultural solidarity of Pakistan” by prohibiting the reprinting in Pakistan of all books published outside the country, “without first obtaining permission to do so” from the respective provincial information ministries.
The salient features of this ordinance are:
1. A “show cause notice” is issued by the Press and Information Branch of the provincial government to any publisher who had not obtained the ministry’s prior permission to reprint a foreign book in Pakistan. This ordinance applies to all reprints. Thus it makes no distinction among scientific, technical, professional, academic, medical reprints (which cannot be ‘objectionable’ under any circumstances) or those in the area of sociology, literature, political science, economics etc. (which can conceivably be ‘anti-Pakistan’, although who is to judge that question is another complicated matter best not left to the illiterate bureaucrats of the Press and Information branch of the provinces). Furthermore, the Ordinance does not concern itself with whether or not reprinting rights have been obtained from the foreign publisher, prior to the reprinting of any book in Pakistan. Thus a local publisher may well have obtained reprinting rights from a foreign publisher but permission to reprint the book in question can still be denied by the provincial government under the provisions of this ordinance.
2. Failure to respond in an acceptable manner, usually within three days of the notice from the provincial government, leads to the registration of a case against the errant publisher and the issuance of non-bailable warrants of arrest.
3. Punishment upon conviction may extend upto several years including a fine.
The ostensible purpose of this Ordinance is to “control and regulate the printing of foreign books” so that ‘anti-Pakistan, anti-Islamic literature’ from a broad is censored. Of course, no one can question the wisdom of this objective. Anti-Pakistan, anti-Islamic literature should not be imported, printed or published anyway. However, several other laws which are more than perfectly adequate already exist on our statute books for the protection of Pakistan’s culture and integrity. For example, the Customs Act, 1969, under Section 15(c), prohibits the importation of obscene literature of all kinds. The Registration of Printing Presses and Publications Ordinance, 1988 (RPPPO), Part IV, details the innumerable conditions under which copies of any publication in the country are forfeited. This RPPPO safeguards the integrity, solidarity and culture of our country more than adequately. However, both the Customs Act and the RPPPO act to deter the importation and publication of ‘objectionable’ material, without imposing pre-publication censorship on the printed word.
In contrast, the West Pakistan Publication of Books Ordinance, 1969, acts to censor publication before publication. Furthermore, publishers are not allowed to appeal in the civil courts against the decision of the Press Branch to withhold reprinting rights. Under the circumstances, the WPPBO can be used, if necessary, by the government to restrict the fundamental rights of expression and speech. In the past, especially during the dark days of the martial law regime of Gen Zia ul Haq, this ordinance was also used quite effectively to silence, even imprison, certain publishers who had published books critical of the regime in power.
Pre-censorship of the printed word is unacceptable in a democratic society. Objectionable imported literature can be legally impounded at Customs’ entry points. Objectionable locally printed books (whether original or reprints) can be banned or forfeited at any time under the RPPPO which comprehensively covers all types of printed literature. The copyright laws should effectively combat piracy, after appropriate tightening, if necessary. But there can be no justification for retraining the censorious WPPBO.