Why is everyone ganging up on Saba Qamar for saying she doesn’t want to live in Karachi?
The actor said she prefers Islamabad and Lahore, and suddenly, the internet made it a moral crisis. Why can’t celebrities have preferences like the rest of us?
Actor Saba Qamar has shared a copy of a legal notice purportedly issued to journalist Naeem Hanif over “defamatory” comments he made about her on a YouTube podcast. In a series of Instagram stories, the actor posted screenshots of the notice alongside a message for her audience.
She said she had “taken legal action against a journalist who spread false and baseless claims about me”. Telling fans and industry fellows to be strong and stand up to defamation and disrespect, she asked them to call such people out and hold them accountable. “No one,” the star said, “has the right to make false accusations just for attention”.
On November 1, Hanif appeared on a news podcast on the YouTube channel RNN TV and discussed the controversy surrounding Qamar’s recent statements on preferring to live in Lahore over Karachi. During the discussion he made allegations of moral ineptitude against the actor dating back to the early 2000s. He also made similar claims about actor Natasha Ali and passed derogatory remarks against actor Mishi Khan.
Hanif is listed as the CEO of RNN TV on its website. He has not acknowledged the notice on his public social media pages.
The notice claimed the journalist had “made and disseminated defamatory, sexist and derogatory statements concerning [Qamar’s] personal and moral character”. It accused the journalist of peddling the “regressive notion that a woman’s achievements are not earned through merit or professionalism but through association with men”.
Hanif’s tirade was “delivered in a tone of mockery and insinuation,” the notice claimed, adding that it was “not part of any legitimate journalistic inquiry or cultural criticism” and that it was a “a misogynistic spectacle designed to sensationalise a false narrative against a woman in the public eye”.
Saying his statements “fell short of all journalistic standards” and that they amounted to “weaponisation of speech to reinforce patriarchal attitudes and publicly police the morality of women who succeed on their own merit,” the notice said Hanif caused Qamar “loss of reputation,” alongside “severe mental agony, psychological harm and trauma”.
Qamar has demanded the journalist take the sexist and defamatory content down within seven days. The notice also calls on Hanif to publicly apologise for his claims, refrain from making any further statements on Qamar’s personal and professional life and pay the actor Rs100 million in damages. Failure to comply may result in the matter being taken to court, the notice said.