INNOCENT UNTIL PROVEN GUILTY

 https://www.pakistantoday.com.pk/2020/08/22/innocent-until-proven-guilty/

Social media─ informative, wide-ranging, crossing boundaries: both national and social; influential, entertaining, fast moving─ social media has brought about a change which little else aside from science can match. We now have instant access to every kind of information from every part of the world and this information influences our opinions and impacts our choices, political and social. We can communicate freely with the people of other countries, we can laugh in the midst of disaster at the antics of ‘covidiots’ or anything else that makes us laugh.

Yet the flipside is that this information we obtain may be unproven or even false, often enough. It may be manipulated and that too it often is either because the one who places the information online has not attempted to verify it, or because the incorrect information plays into the hands of the person who provides it.

The jokes on social media may be funny and lighten the mood, but they may also be cruel and hurtful to a group of persons.

Choices based on information provided by social media therefore stand a good chance of being flawed─ on the other hand they may not. Information provided by social media is no different to that disseminated by publications, but it is much more readily available, even for those who cannot read. We have yet to come up with talking newspapers outside of Harry Potter, but audio clips and videos on social media speak even to those unable or unwilling to read for whatever reason.

Information or misinformation, we now have the ability to pass it on it at the touch of a button, and oh man, does it get passed on… far and wide into places it would never have penetrated before. The information is simply there, right or wrong, which means that what would normally not have left the suburb, the city or at most the country is now available to anyone anywhere.

Everyone knows a great deal now about the American President for example, down to his shower-head preferences. We know about the best horror books and movies from around the world, and the fact that a 76 year old teacher from Malakand is looking to pursue higher studies. This huge cache of information has its own positive and negative side effects. Let’s take a look at one kind of information.

Geoffrey Rush was one of the luckier ones. The Australian actor, one of the few actors to have won an Academy, an Emmy and a Tony was accused by Sydney’s Daily Telegraph, a newspaper owned by Rupert Murdoch, of sexual harassment, of ‘behaving inappropriately towards a former theatre co-star.’ Following a case that declared Mr. Rush not guilty, he was awarded a defamation payout worth 2.9 million Australian dollars in recompense.

On the other hand the actor Jeremy Piven, one of the stars of the television show Entourage, was unable to withstand similar accusations which still hang over him.

Piven took lie detector tests which did not indicate he was lying. There was no case which proved him guilty, or otherwise.

Social media has given rise to movements such as ‘Me Too’ which is a dynamic and forceful effort against sexual harassment and sexual abuse ‘where people publicise allegations of sex crimes committed by power or prominent men.’

Piven has said about the ‘Me Too’ movement that it “puts lives in jeopardy without a hearing, due process or evidence”. Writing about this comment,  the British journalist Brendan O’Neill suggests that the presumption of innocence is being weakened by this movement.

So what is the presumption of innocence until proven guilty? This presumption is written into the constitution of almost all civilized nations today. It is also included in Talmudical and Islamic law, and in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights article 11 which states that “Everyone charged with a penal offence has the right to be presumed innocent until proven guilty according to law in a public trial at which he has had all the guarantees necessary for his defense.”

If one looks at the ‘Me Too’ Movement in this light it shows a few flaws. While it is a laudable effort and an empowering movement the fact remains that it accuses but does not attempt to prove.

This column is not about believing the accuser or the accused. It is about understanding that an accusation that is never proven remains just that: an accusation, and as such it hurts both the accuser and the accused. In Piven’s case, following the unproven accusations against him CBS ‘pulled the plug on Piven’s series Wisdom of the Crowd and the only jobs he tends to get are as a stand-up comedian.

Being the victim of sexual harassment is a terrible matter. Not to be able to speak of it, not to be able to defend oneself against it, the mere memory of it tears at the victim to the point of driving some to suicide. Yet, society that fails to support women also fails them when they are victims of harassment. Unless it is a case of rape in which case there might be DNA evidence, plain sexual harassment is hardly ever provable, not unless there are video records or public misogynistic statements by the accused. Or perhaps he might have a previous proven record, which still does not prove that he was at fault in another case but at least it indicates a predilection.

As for the victim, to accuse takes immense courage and is admirable, anywhere but particularly in this society where women face harassment as a matter of course, almost every day of their lives.

Yet an unproven accusation can rebound upon the accuser. You question the need for such an accusation when the accuser is aware that there is no proof.

There is at present the case of Ali Zafar and the accusations of sexual harassment made against him by several women. He is a man without a history of such behaviour or any incriminatory statements on record. The accusation remains what it is, an accusation. And he has just been awarded the Pride of Performance for his musical performance. If this award is withheld because of the accusation made against him─  which women’s rights activists are urging should be done─ it would be an injustice, and against the presumption of innocence under the law. There are instances of awards being taken away after being conferred. This can always ben done if necessary. Meantime, congratulations Mr. Zafar.

Please remember what was said above that this is not about believing the accuser or the accused.

At the end of the day it comes down to what the English jurist William Blackstone is quoted as saying, that “It is better than ten guilty persons escape than one innocent suffer.”

It is therefore the responsibility of the State to ensure that attitudes toward women change, that they are much more respectful than they are. Pakistan lags far behind in this matter. For the State to ensure that it is possible for everyone including women to stand up for their rights, and to point out injustice when it is done to them. But above it is important that the law considers everyone innocent until proven guilty.