A slippery slope
Jibran Nasir’s detention was thankfully brief and one has to say that even this was uncalled for.
It seems that a few of his recent tweets criticising the actions of the establishment were the bone of contention but it has to be said that institutions should be able to tolerate criticism made on the basis of judging actions of the institution and without any personal attacks. Of course, politicians have had seen far worse, especially on social media with PML-N and PPP leaders often bearing the brunt from PTI’s social media troll army.
Jibran Nasir’s detention, albeit brief, shouldn’t have happened at all. He spoke out against the harassment of the-then opposition politicians during Imran Khan’s government and he’s doing the same thing now. Unlike the PTI’s social media army, he did not attack any individuals or make any personal broadsides against anyone.
Our institutions should realise that such detentions should be avoided because they cannot be justified under any circumstance or for any reason and only attract (and rightly so) considerable opprobrium.
If today Jibran Nasir is arrested for a bunch of tweets that generally criticised an action of an institution then tomorrow the same could happen with anyone, or for much less.
It’s a slippery slope.