ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) — The government’s intolerance of public dissent isn’t easing ahead of next month’s parliamentary elections, with TV executives warned they could go to jail and pay fines if they give the president’s critics a live forum.
Pakistan’s regulators ordered all satellite television channels “to stop airing such live programs, talk shows and contents immediately,” according to a copy of a letter Tuesday obtained by The Associated Press.
In the letter, the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority complains some channels are still “airing live coverage and taking live telephone calls from public which contain baseless propaganda against Pakistan and incite people to violence.”
The regulators warn the channels could be taken off the air, and those responsible — the network’s license holder or its representative — could face up to three years in jail and fines of up to $170,000.
Journalists responded Wednesday by accusing the state media regulator of trying to restrict their coverage of the Jan. 8 elections. The Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists, or PFUJ, called it “an attempt to silence the free media.”
Information Minister Nisar Memon denies any censorship, saying the independent channels must show they are responsible by not stirring up political tensions.
“Every one of us in Pakistan should share the responsibility and work for betterment of the country by keeping the environment conducive for the polls,” Memon said.
Still, networks likely will comply with the threat and avoid giving live coverage of fiery speeches of opposition leaders such as Nawaz Sharif and Benazir Bhutto, the two former prime ministers who returned in recent months from years of living in exile.
The media regulator is telling networks to install time-delay equipment to prevent violations of its orders.
Both Bhutto and Sharif have hit the campaign trail this week, vowing to do all they can to curtail Musharraf’s clout. They backed off from threats to boycott the elections, despite concerns the vote will be rigged, because they do not want to leave the field open to Musharraf supporters.
Addressing hundreds of backers near the eastern city of Sialkot, Sharif urged people to reject candidates from the pro-Musharraf ruling party and said the elections would prove to be a “final blow to the crumbling wall of Musharraf’s government.”
“I want to eliminate dictatorship, and I cannot achieve this goal without your support,” Sharif said.
Bhutto repeated accusations that Musharraf will use police, the judiciary and administration functionaries to cheat. She urged them not to comply.
“You should be accountable to your conscience and to Allah almighty,” she told about 1,500 supporters in Pabbi, 15 miles east of Peshawar. “You should not indulge in any rigging for this cruel government. Don’t back those who are indulging in oppression against the people of this country.”
The media crackdown adds to concerns on whether the elections can be free and fair and restore democracy after eight years of military-dominated rule under Musharraf.
When Musharraf imposed emergency rule Nov. 3, he rounded up opponents, purged top judges who could have derailed his re-election, and cracked down on independent media.
The government outlawed live coverage of incidents of violence and anything considered defamatory of the president, armed forces and state organs. It also made independent networks that have mushroomed under Musharraf’s rule sign a “code of conduct” so they could broadcast again.
Musharraf, who last month resigned his position as army chief, says he will lift the emergency rule this weekend, but it appears his media curbs will remain in effect.
The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists said it was troubled by evidence of pressure on TV news channels in the run-up to the elections.
“We call on the Musharraf government to cease intimidation of the broadcast media and allow full independent coverage of the political situation in Pakistan,” said Bob Dietz, the committee’s Asia program coordinator.
Despite criticism that the crackdown is a strategy for political survival, Musharraf says he did what was necessary to maintain Pakistan’s stability and to fight Islamic extremism.
Associated Press writers Munir Ahmad, Matthew Pennington and Zarar Khan contributed to this report.
Does anyone here knows how the 2007 ammendments to the PEMRA ordinance of 2002 curb honest/ unbiased journalism?
Well, the main purpose of these amendments was to bar media from criticizing the dictatorship. BTW, PEMRA was suppose to be an autonomous body...its no longer the case now. PEMRA is now under the info ministry.
Following is the text of the Ordinance: Ordinance No. XXVI of 2007. An ORDINANCE, to further amend the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority Ordinance, 2002.
WHEREAS it is expedient to further to amend the Pakistan Media Regulatory Authority Ordinance, 2002 (XIII of 2002), for the purposes here in after appearing; AND WHEREAS the National Assembly is not in session and circumstances exist which render it necessary to take immediate action; NOW, THEREFORE, in the exercise of the powers conferred by clause (1) of Article 89 of the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, the President is pleased to make and promulgate the following Ordinance:-1. Short title, extent and commencement:
(1) This Ordinance may be called the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (Amendment) Ordinance, 2007. (2) It shall come into force at once.
Amendment of section 2, Ordinance XIII of 2002:- In the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority Ordinance, 2002 (XIII of 2002),Hereunder referred to as the said Ordinance, in section 2,- (a) in clause (ha) for the letters "DTH" the letters and commas "DTH, IPTV, Mobile TV" shall be substituted; and (b) for clause (j) the following shall be substituted, namely:- (j)-- "Frequency" means the frequency of the electromagnetic waves measured in Hertz and used for transmission;".
Amendment of section 4, Ordinance XIII of 2002.- In the said Ordinance,in section 4, sub-section (3) shall be omitted.
Amendment of section 20, Ordinance XIII of 2002.- In the said Ordinance, in section 20, in clause (d), after the word "rules" the words "and regulations" shall be inserted.
Amendment of section 23, Ordinance XIII of 2002. In the said Ordinance, in section 23, in sub-section (2) in the proviso, for the word "fare" the word "Fair" shall be substituted.
Amendment of Section 25, Ordinance XIII of 2002.- In the said Ordinance ,in section 25, in claus e(d), after the word "organization" the words" including any foreign non-governmental organization" shall be added.
Amendment of section 27, Ordinance XIII of 2002.- In the said Ordinance ,in section 27,- (a) for the word "therefore," the word "there for" shall be substituted; and (b) after the word "operator" the words "or owner" shall be inserted.
Amendment of section 28, Ordinance XIII of 2002.- In the said Ordinance,in section 28, in the marginal note, of the section for the word "of" the word"by" shall be substituted.
Amendment of section 29, Ordinance XIII of 2002,- In the said Ordinance,in section 29,- (a) in sub-section (5), the proviso, for the full stop, at the end, a colon shall be substituted and thereafter the following further proviso shall be added, namely:- "Provided further that he Authority or the Chairman may seize a broadcast or distribution service equipment or seal the premises which is operating illegally or in contravention of orders passed under section 30."; and (b) in sub-section (6), for the word "one" a word "ten" shall be substituted.
Amendment of section 30, Ordinance XIII of 2002, - In the said Ordinance, in section 30, - (a) in sub section (1), (i) in clause (b), for the colon, at the end, a full stop shall be substituted; and (ii) the proviso shall be omitted, (b) in sub-section (3) the comma and word ", suspended" shall be omitted; and (c) after sub-section (3) following new sub-section shall be added, namely: -"(4) License of a broadcast media may be suspended on any of the grounds specified in sub-section (1), by a duly constituted committee comprising members of the Authority."
Insertion of section 39A, Ordinance XIII of 2002: In the saidO rdinance, after section 39, the following new section shall be inserted, namely: "39A. Power of the Authority to make regulations:” The Authority may by notification in the official Gazette, make regulations, not inconsistent with this Ordinance and the rules made there under, to provide for all matters for which provisions is necessary or expedient for carrying out the purpose of this Ordinance."
All these are cosmetic changes except the authority to seal the premises where "illegal" transmission is being broadcasted from and sieze the equipment. What is so wrong with that?
I skimmed through the 2002 ordinance and although I am no legal authority, I didnt find anything that was over the top there. The ordinance has been there since 2002 and Media has more or less the same regulations, except that implementation has been made more stringent, but is that a reason to cry "hai zulm ho gaya"?
^^ Well the biggest change that was made to PEMRA was to bring it under the control of info ministry. Basically what that means is turning private tv channels into PTV (Pakistan tunnel vision). It also give the chairman too much power to seize broadcast equipments and making changes to ordinance himself as needed.
Huh? Aren't most, if not all, regulating authorities under ministries in most parts of the world? How are the powers of siezing equipment that is being used illegally to the regulating authority wrong? On the same token will you consider the power of police to arrest when a crime is comitted wrong?
Faisal Aziz (Association of TV Journalists) and Shamimur Rehman (Karachi Union of Journalists) at a sit-in protest.
KARACHI, Nov 23 (IPS) - From being the liberal President under whom Pakistan’s independent electronic media was born and flourished, Pervez Musharraf is now seen as the military general who imposed emergency rule on Nov 3 and suspended the Constitution and the independent judiciary.
Musharraf also blocked all independent television channels on the cable network. There were police raids on media organisations, printing presses and bureau offices and detentions of journalists.
For many, Musharraf’s ham-handed dealing with the media over the past year, and particularly the last couple of weeks, evokes bitter memories of the late Gen. Ziaul Haq’s martial law with its strict media censorship and ‘press advice’. Newspapers in protest published blank spaces where material had been censored. Dissenting journalists were arrested and some were even flogged.
Musharraf has been comparatively benign.But this is a very different era, where independent news and views and a continuous flow of information had become the norm. In Zia’s time, there were only a handful of independent newspapers, hardly a threat, given the abysmally low 30 per cent literacy rate. Musharraf has had to contend with the independent electronic media with a huge outreach. Until now, his claim that he gave the media more freedom than ever before was true to an extent, say journalists, but it is a freedom they have fought for, and it has come with a price.
“An explosion in the number of independent TV channels boosted pluralism and the quality of news,” noted the media watchdog Reporters Without Borders in its annual report of 2007. Simultaneously, since Pakistan’s involvement as a frontline state against the ‘war on terror, “the security forces radicalised their methods of repression: a score of journalists were kidnapped and tortured by the military.” Almost two dozen have been killed in different incidents since.
On Nov 3, PEMRA (Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority) officials invaded the independent FM radio station Mast 103.6’s Karachi office with a heavy police contingent. They forced it to close transmission and confiscated its broadcast equipment, citing the station’s broadcast of its hourly news bulletins and current affairs programmes from BBC as the reason. In 2004 too, PEMRA had sealed the popular radio network’s Lahore and Karachi stations.
The outspoken Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists (www.pfuj.info) which has a long history of struggle for media freedom, termed the present situation “one of the worst kind of repression against the media since 1978”. The union has called for an ongoing series of protests, meetings and demonstrations until the media restrictions were lifted and all the channels restored.
“In the Zia days, we would protest in groups of four and chant slogans against the martial law and media restrictions. We would court arrest peacefully, and the police would pick us up,” recalled Nasir Zaidi who works for the ‘The News’ in Islamabad. Section 144, the law the government routinely invokes to prohibit public gatherings of more than four persons, was then in force around the country – as it is once again.
In 1978, Zaidi, then a frail young reporter with the Associated Press of Pakistan (APP), was arrested and flogged for protesting against the closure of the daily Musawat (a paper sympathetic to the Pakistan People’s Party of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, the elected prime minister whom Gen. Zia had overthrown).
“We were isolated then. The biggest difference now is the number of people supporting the journalists. It’s a mass movement, there’s a lot of commitment and participation, particularly of the younger people,” he told IPS.
Over a hundred journalists offered themselves for mass arrest in Karachi on Nov 20 after the police attacked them with batons, refused to let them march to the Governor House to present a memorandum, and arrested their leaders. Police have attacked and arrested journalists demonstrating all over the country over the last couple of days, from Gotki and Hyderabad in Sindh province, to Faisalabad in the Punjab, and Quetta in the western province of Balochistan.
Zaidi attributes the new energy largely to the TV channels. “They tend to employ younger people, most of whom are very progressive. They see these Black Laws (the new PEMRA ordinances) as a direct attack on press freedom.”
The Pakistan Association of Television Journalists has 621 members around the country, 307 in the business capital Karachi alone. “Most are less than 35 or 40 years old,” estimated Faisal Aziz Khan, the 33-year old secretary general of the association, talking to IPS at the old sandstone Karachi Press Club building where he participated in a hunger-strike as part of PFUJ’s ongoing series of protests.
Geo News, Pakistan’s first and largest 24-hour news channel, for which the young reporter and television host has worked since its launch in 2002, is part of the country’s largest media company, the Jang Group which owns several newspapers and magazines. Its television network broadcasts from Media City, a free-zone in Dubai from where it beams to a satellite network.
After Nov. 3 when PEMRA got cable operators in Pakistan to block the independent channels, the independent channels continued to reach viewers via streaming through the Internet and satellite transmission throughout the shutdown despite huge revenue losses due to loss of local advertising.
By Nov 16, most had capitulated and were back on air, having agreed to conditions like the government’s new “code of conduct” drawn up in June by the Pakistan Broadcasters Association. Some agreed to drop certain popular talk show hosts or anchors. Geo and ARY refused.
“Everyone wants Geo back on air,” said Abdul Jabbar, who lives in Korangi, a semi-slum in Karachi. “We don’t know what’s going on. PTV (the state-owned Pakistan Television) only gives one side of the story. Geo was reporting very openly, giving all sides. What is the government trying to hide?”
The Musharraf regime in a dramatic development got the Dubai government, on Nov. 17, to order these channels to stop broadcast from Media City. The ban has hit Geo the hardest. The network alleges that it is being targeted specifically in order to cripple it financially, with estimated daily financial losses at half a million to a million dollars.
“They asked us to get rid of three or four specific people, and also some people on the print side,” said Mir Ibrahim Rehman, the young CEO of Geo. His family owns Pakistan’s largest-selling newspaper, the daily Urdu-language Jang, besides the English daily ‘The News’ and several other publications. Rehman estimates that the print side has suffered a 30-40 percent decline in revenues after the government pulled all its advertisements and pressurized private advertisers to do the same.
“This is financial murder,” he added. The Geo management has gone to court to get at least the non-news channels back on air. The case is pending before the Sindh High Court.
The blocking of these channels generated widespread outrage. Pakistani expatriates and advocates of free expression around the world have offered to get the news out, through cell phone messages, helping them to hook up with satellite dish networks from New Jersey, USA, to Bangkok, Thailand, putting up video feeds and streaming on various websites, ranging from Human Rights Watch to blogs like www.supportpakistan.org.
“We are going to continue demanding that the government take back the new ordinances and restore all the channels, radio and TV,” said Huma Ali, president of the PFUJ and editor of the daily Urdu language ‘Din’ newspaper. Talking to IPS from Islamabad, he added, “This is not a fight of journalists alone, but of all of civil society, all those who want democracy.”
“Unless freedom of expression is ensured, there can be no democracy,” said Shamimur Rehman, a senior reporter for daily ‘Dawn’ and president of the Karachi Union of Journalists sitting at the Karachi Press Club hunger-strike camp on Nov 11 under the watchful eye of armed police and rangers who have virtually laid siege to the club since Nov 3. Rehman was among the first journalists to be arrested on Nov. 20.
“It is about the right to live in a civilized society. The real fight is against the extremists,” commented Owais Tohid, who heads a new English language channel launched by Geo. Tohid led the twenty one journalists from Geo English who courted arrest on Nov 20 in Karachi in solidarity with detained colleagues like Shamimur Rehman.
The crisis for the first time in almost two decades is bringing together the stakeholders. Media owners, broadcast as well as print, are setting aside their rivalries, and patching up differences with working journalists.
“The most positive thing I can see is the cooperation developing between the publishers, broadcasters and the working journalists,” said Kanak Mani Dixit, editor of the Nepali Himal Southasian, who was in Pakistan recently on behalf of the International Federation of Journalists. “This unity is important to keep media freedom alive.”