This research is written for the general public, however, the motive behind this research is to make aware the students of the media and human rights activists about the freedom of the Pakistani Press. The Press in Pakistan avoids indulging itself in a risk situation by representing the minority and also reporting injustice against minority religious groups as a common attitude of society.

Communicating risk: majority and minority in the media text

On October 2005, in Pakistan, during morning prayers, two motorcyclists had attacked on Ahmadis’ place of worship, killed eight and inured fourteen people. this and the attacks before this on the Ahmadis place of worship are examined through the lenses of social and legal discourse frameworks of Pakistani society which place the Ahmadis in a risky position, and they are believed to be threat to Pakistani social and religious values. The Ahmadis are a religious minority in Pakistan and follower of Mirza Ghulam Ahmad who declared himself, the Imam and the prophet. In this respect, in 1974 the government of Pakistan declared them non-Muslims and heretical by amending the constitution of the country. In 1984, the Tuheen-e-Risalat (blasphemy) law was introduced for the Ahmadis. These laws are an outcome of the influence of the majority ruling Sunni-Muslim groups.

This October incident has been reported in local, national and international newspapers. The language of these reports is different from each other due to different geographic and socio-cultural set ups.

The two newspapers, the Dawn and the Nawa-i-Waqt, published from Pakistan have reported the incident in the social, cultural and the legal limitations: crossing these limitations is risk to these media outlets. The Pakistani media works as a bardic of the majority, the majority that controls power of the state. It represents majority as ‘us’ and minority as ‘the others’. The constitution of the country and other blasphemy laws work as taboo for the each individual at anywhere whether he or she works in the media or somewhere else. The day-to-day execution of Ahmadis is open threat to all who takes chance to represent Ahmadis as Muslims. the media if is out of the premises of Pakistan, for example, the BBC, it represents differently, whether it is the majority or minority, these both groups are portrayed as ‘the others’ because the BBC is not bound to any Pakistani legal and socio-cultural restrictions.

When the BBC represents two binary religious groups, the minority Ahmadis and majority Sunni, in Pakistan, its language of representation is mild for the victims and hard for the attackers and their religion. Sunni Muslims are represented as the terrorists and so their religion and Ahmadis are placed in a victimized position. It shows that Ahmadis are a peaceful community and have not crossed the boundaries of society demarcated by the majority ruling Sunni group. In the BBC, Ahmadis are Muslims and their place of worship is a mosque. According to the Laws in Pakistan, it is blasphemy if a Ahmadi call him/herself a Muslim and term his/her place of worship a mosque. Not only this but there are so many other taboos practiced against Ahmadis which bare Ahmadis be looking like Muslims. This is why the Dawn and Nawai-i-Waqt newspaper published from Pakistan have avoided using the language, which could show that Ahmadis are Muslims and their place of worship is a mosque. These newspapers see the Ahmadis in a similar way as the majority Sunni Muslim group.

By these activities and incidents, the media persons and human rights activists all over the world may suppose that the media in Pakistan has not come out of the clutches of the existing radical thoughts, which are believed to be anti-human, liberal and progressive thoughts. On the one hand, these activities show that the constitution of the country is made up of contrary regulations; it offers freedom to all to practice their religions and on the other, it does not allow few to practicing their religions.

In addition, this is a matter of great concern because the media seems as a part of the radical thoughts, and if not, but it is at least confined to the rules and regulations which stop the media to debate the issue and lead the society towards reforms. Reforming the country would not be easier until all the stakeholders of the society take initiative to remove the problems, which are hurdle in the progress of the country.

The Pakistani media communicates the incident according to the dominant discourse constructed by the majority. They might speak from a position of assumed consensus on other issues but in this particular case reflection of the cracks and inconsistencies may be risky for the media as it is for the Ahmadis.

according to Schroeder and Philips, communicate the message of the real originator (the audience) of the culture in which these are both located: “both functions under a cultural logic that obliges them to speak from a position of assumed consensus, but also to reflect the cracks and inconsistencies that may appear in that consensus” (p. 40).

Schroeder and Philips write that the appeal of bardic theory in defining “the relationship between the media and audience lies in its accentuation of the mutuality between media and citizens in the collective construction of the culture's discursive universe, and its exclusion of simple power and causal relationships” (p. 40). Mythen (2004: 77) also claims that the "[m]anufactured risks...are described as a 'pure media events' which serve to orchestrate public dialogue". He assumes that the media are a discursive place "in which political contestation about risk take places". Here Mythen supports Becks and Douglas' idea that risk has invariably been taken as a political issue.

Briefly, the concept of risk associated with the Ahmadi phenomenon has not been directly represented. It is not shown that the Ahmadis are a danger to the integration of the state. However, these are. In representing risks from the Ahmadis cultural and religious aspects are dominant over the Pakistani media’s own choice in representing ‘the others’. The Ahmadis are clearly represented as ‘the others’. In this case, the Pakistani media perform as bards of the Sunni Muslim culture in that they are powerless in addressing the issue in the way that outsiders (the BBC) can perform boldly. The BBC has represented the Ahmadis and radical Muslims in its own position, and is independent of any influence of power that works in Pakistan. In addition, the BBC cannot be the bard of Pakistani culture, because few people read the BBC news at its website and listen its programme in English in Pakistan. It is not a part of the culture; it cannot perform the role that the Pakistani media in Pakistan perform.

The intrinsic importance of the incident lies in the system where fixed terminologies are used to set apart one entity (us) from another (others). The news is formatted through specific sets of social and legal rules. In an anthropological sense, the response to risk is not atomized and individual but rather collective and cultural. The news reports in the Dawn and NW are a reflection of a social and ideological practice, or in other words a discourse that represents social facts within the frameworks of society. The formation of the language, according to given conditions and frameworks, supports the idea that the news reporting is greatly under the influence of current social and ideological processes. The neutrality of the language use is at stake. Also controlling those processes which are shown in these particular cases is not viable, because the dominant social behaviour rules over the process of news formation.

Thus, from an anthropological perspective, the formation of the perception of risk posed by ‘the others’ is collective rather individual. It is neither an issue of a few groups nor the problem of representing Ahmadis as ‘the others’ in the media, rather it is an issue of the common discourse of hatred against 'the others' (Ahmadis) which is being injected into the veins of the society. In order to eradicate such perceptions, people in Pakistan need rigorous efforts. There is also a responsibility of the state to allow the media to start a debate on the freedom of belief and practices.

The generalization of assumptions is very crucial point for this study, inasmuch as the size of sample is too small to see its implications with the media practices as whole, but it has a wider context, and in its contextual analysis some other news stories and facts are being presented to justify the generalization of certain risk assumptions.