A Shameless Surrender.

A few short days ago 86 Tehreek-i-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) workers were each handed 55 year long sentences by an anti-terrorism court for rioting and resisting the police. The verdict was celebrated across the country; finally the group gets what it deserves, a just punishment for taking the law into their own hand and blackmailing the government based on their own hardline interpretation of Islam. Yet, that watershed moment shone brightly for a few days only; the TLP is back to strong-arming the government, and more disappointingly, the government is all too willing to surrender without a fight.

The saga surrounding the release of the Pakistani movie 'Zindagi Tamasha' is a dismal display of how weak this government has become. It starts form the beginning; the director of the film, Sarmad Khoosat, starts receiving threatening calls and messages from the TLP to pull the film from cinemas. The government instead of investigating and arresting the perpetrators of a clear crime of blackmail, decided to halt the release of the film for 'reconsideration'. Why reconsider when the film has already been approved by all censor boards in Pakistan? Why can't the government follow its own laws? More fundamental is the question who is the TLP to 'raise concerns' about the release of a film that does not concern them. Why are such a small group of people afforded such enormous importance, more importance than the...