DAWN Editorials - 12th August 2025

[zarnishhayat]

Another amendment? THE dust from the 26th Amendment has yet to settle, but talk of a 27th one is already in the air.

Given the acrimony that surrounded the last attempt to tinker with the Constitution, one wonders if it will be any different this time. Much has changed since the last amendment was forced through the legislature.

The last time the Constitution was being amended, the government did not have the votes to get its bill passed. Lawmakers had to be roped in from the opposition benches to cobble together a two-thirds majority. Some came willingly, after cutting deals. Others had no choice. It did not matter. It was clear from the beginning that the law had to be passed.

Even allied lawmakers did not have full knowledge of what they were voting for, and the law minister is said to have simply been handed a draft with clear instructions.

To be clear, there is nothing concrete that is known about the ‘27th Amendment’. For now, it seems merely to be a topic of discussion within the PML-N and its coterie of legal advisers. No proposal has been shared with the party’s allies, nor is there a draft that may be debated.


Still, it has remained a topic of discussion ever since the government inherited a two-thirds majority courtesy of the Constitutional Bench that the 26th Amendment had helped set up. The two-thirds majority might be the main reason why the government does not seem too fussed. This time, there will not be a need to abduct, bribe or coerce opposition lawmakers.

Nor will any party not already allied to the regime be able to blackmail its way into receiving concessions, or to force the government to rethink its agenda. Indeed, the amendment will be seen through without any hiccups even if the regime were to decide that it must be passed tomorrow.

It is said that the government may be seeking more ‘fixes’ for the judiciary. The 26th Amendment apparently did not fix it enough.

But it would be deeply unfortunate if the amendment being debated is also focused heavily on a narrow agenda. Pakistan faces several deep-rooted issues that require urgent legislative intervention. These include matters like the possibility of a new province in south Punjab; the need to revisit the role and authority of caretaker governments; addressing the inability of the ECP in fulfilling its intended purpose; and the management of the growing burden of the NFC award, among many others.

If the government decides to take all stakeholders on board, especially the opposition, the new amendment could become an opportunity to build bridges where the 26th sowed divisions. Now virtually unchallengeable, the regime would benefit by showing some grace. With power comes responsibility, and it must start to demonstrate some.

Published in Dawn, August 12th, 2025

War on journalists THE Gaza Strip has become a graveyard for journalists as well, with Israel intentionally murdering those who dare to report on the atrocities it is committing in the occupied Palestinian territory. On Sunday night, Zionist forces attacked a journalists’ tent outside the al-Shifa Hospital, murdering at least six media persons. Five of them worked for Al Jazeera, including award-winning correspondent Anas al-Sharif. This was no accident, as al-Sharif had been a marked man due to his reporting, with Israeli officials earlier calling him out by name, accusing him of being a Hamas fighter — an allegation refuted by his employer. Meanwhile, the Committee to Protect Journalists had termed the Israeli campaign against the reporter a “real-life threat”. Sadly, it is clear that Israel can literally get away with murder after calling anyone a Hamas fighter; perhaps the tens of thousands of innocent children that Tel Aviv has butchered in Gaza’s wasteland were also seen as militants worthy of death by the Zionist entity.

As the CPJ has put it, “Israel is murdering the messengers”. Foreign media cannot enter Gaza thanks to a blockade enforced by Israel. Hence, the brave voices that remain in this devastated Strip are targeted by Tel Aviv for doing their jobs, particularly exposing the barbarity of the Israeli regime. According to Al Jazeera, over 270 media workers have been killed in Israel’s war on Gaza since October 2023, most of them Palestinians. Multiple family members of media workers have been wiped out by the Zionists, including that of Wael Dahdouh and Moamen al-Sharafi. Even before the atrocities in Gaza, Israel had no qualms about murdering Palestinian journalists, such as Shireen Abu Akleh, who was targeted in Jenin in 2022. Still, despite the immense dangers to themselves, and while dealing with the loss of family members and colleagues murdered by Israel, these brave men and women continue to discharge their professional duties. It is due to their efforts that we know of Gaza’s starving children, its bombed hospitals, its maimed and bloodied citizens. Tel Aviv is exacting revenge on Palestinian journalists for telling the truth, and smearing them as militants. Will the standard-bearers of free press and expression in the West and elsewhere demand justice for Anas al-Sharif and hundreds of Palestinian media workers murdered in the line of duty? Or will the criminal silence continue?

Published in Dawn, August 12th, 2025

Climate’s human toll IN Danyor, Gilgit-Baltistan, seven young men were crushed to death under a landslide in the early hours of Monday. They were not engineers or state rescue workers, but local volunteers trying to restore the town’s only water supply after floods had destroyed it. Ordinary citizens were forced to shoulder the burden the government should have carried, ultimately losing their lives. Their sacrifice reminds us of both the human toll of climate change and the cost of official inaction. GB is on the front line of Pakistan’s climate emergency. Melting glaciers, unpredictable rains and increasingly destructive flash floods are remaking the region’s geography. Since late June, heavy downpours — followed by floods on July 21 in Babusar and the next day in Danyor — have swept away bridges, roads, crops and irrigation systems, cutting off entire valleys and leaving thousands without drinking or irrigation water.

Scientists have long warned that such events will become more frequent and intense. Yet the state’s response remains reactive and shallow, defined more by condolence statements than preventive planning. In Danyor, repeated appeals for the restoration of the damaged water channel were met with assurances, not action. When a temporary fix made by locals was washed away, the government still did nothing. Faced with shortages, residents took the risk themselves, working in dangerous conditions — until the earth gave way. The administration arrived only after lives had been lost, with compensation cheques and promises of medical care. This pattern cannot continue. The government must invest in climate-resilient infrastructure, building effective early-warning systems, and deploying trained disaster-response teams in GB. In the immediate term, it must restore the water supply and repair damaged links before more people are exposed to danger. The people of Danyor stepped forward because the state stepped back. Their courage should not become another statistic in a long list of preventable disasters.

Published in Dawn, August 12th, 2025