Pakistan's uneasy laughter

LAHORE, Pakistan - There's a certain darkness to the humor in Pakistan these days. Take the case of Fasi Zaka and

News, Views and Confused

.

The program, a Pakistani version of Comedy Central's

The Daily Show

, features Zaka and a coanchor. On a recent episode, the coanchor teases Zaka about his scruffy, rumpled appearance.

"You look terrible," he tells Zaka. "You need to accessorize."

The coanchor pulls out a black armband, the widely recognized symbol of protest in Pakistan since President Pervez Musharraf declared emergency rule Nov. 3. The audience cheers. Zaka feigns naivete, quipping, "I'd like to join this fashion movement," and puts the armband on.

These are not easy times to be a journalist in Pakistan, let alone an irreverent political comic. Musharraf's government has blacked out the country's lively independent news channels and detained scores of journalists. Zaka's show was canceled for several weeks; it aired Nov. 21 for the first time since the emergency measures took effect.

Musharraf's government has also sought the help of allies to contain news coverage. On Nov. 17, the United Arab Emirates agreed to shut down two of Pakistan's largest and most popular networks, Geo TV and ARY, which had been broadcasting news of events in Pakistan via satellite from Dubai.

But dissent is difficult to shut out completely, and in Pakistan, comedy is emerging as an important tool of government critics, much as underground satire and thinly veiled jokes were once powerful forces in the Soviet Union.

Ironically, it was Musharraf who first encouraged independent media in Pakistan after he took power in 1999. He saw invigorating the mass media as a way to compete with the plethora of cable stations based in Pakistan's archrival, India. Musharraf himself seemed a darling of the Western media, even appearing in September 2006 on

The Daily Show

, where he sipped jasmine green tea with Jon Stewart and joked about the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden.

Now, Musharraf is requiring TV news stations to sign a code of conduct that subjects journalists to fines and jail time if they ridicule him or other government officials. Certain TV personalities have been targeted, with several talk-show hosts being pressured to sign the code of conduct, both by the government and by their own bosses.

In a recent interview, Musharraf said it was a sensitive time in Pakistan because of rising extremism. "The media should not agitate," he said. "It should join us in the war on terror."

But many leading journalists here say a free press is an important tool to question the actions of the state, and sometimes to make fun of it.

"Views being aired and irreverence and laughter are a healthy thing," said Jugnu Mohsin, a longtime Pakistani satirist who writes a monthly humor column, "Mush and Bush," for the Friday Times, a weekly English-language newspaper based in Lahore. "You can't crush the human need to laugh."

During times of crisis and political drama, there is plenty of material to use for comedic purposes. In one of Mohsin's recent unsigned columns, Musharraf appears as a wily Bush ally. The two talk about terrorism but end up plotting to get a Burger King and a McDonald's into Afghanistan.

"Mush: I thought you decided to partition Afghanistan.

"Bush: Yeah, then we can call it Halfganistan."

Mohsin has so far remained out of prison, but she and her husband, Najam Sethi, editor in chief of the Friday Times, have suffered hardships - threats on their lives, attacks on their homes - under previous military governments. Sethi has been jailed three times from the 1970s to the 1990s.