For God’s sake help us, become a witness against injustice!
Respected teachers, honourable former judges, valiant lawyers, reverent Ulema, present and former parliamentarians, government officers, students, businessmen, labour unionists, members of the civil society, brave women and virtually every citizen of Pakistan, we need your help, and we need it now!
You all are aware that for a long time now the present federal government, furious with our independent editorial policy and refusal to stop speaking the truth to the nation, has been employing every conceivable tactic to inflict massive financial damage upon our group. We remain committed to providing objective information and quality entertainment to the nation. That is why we bought cable and satellite broadcasting rights of the ICC Cricket World Cup 2011 for over one billion rupees. We were aware and had also been openly warned of dire financial consequences if we went ahead with this endeavour. We were clearly threatened that we would not be allowed to show the world cup without hindrance. And that is exactly what has happened. Dirty tactics were employed with the commencement of the world cup matches and continue to this day. We sought, and got justice from the Supreme Court of Pakistan and the honourable Islamabad High Court also ordered that our rights must be upheld by the government and all institutions. But the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA) continues to play with the courts orders to damage us. PEMRA has also influenced many cable operators into colluding with it and today’s strike by cable operators wherein they will block out all channels except state run PTV is a naked move by PEMRA and PTV to not only cause immense financial damage to us but in the same breath to give a unfair financial benefit to the state run TV.
This government injustice must not endure. We request you in the name of God and justice, to stand up as witnesses against this intimidation because only you can put this wrong, right. It is our obligation to provide you with uninterrupted honest and quality programming and your right to see what you want to and where, and not where you are told to per force. Please stand up for our rights and yours. Please call the toll-free number given at the end of this appeal and let us know what channels are being shown on your cable network today? which channels are beaming in with perfect transmission quality and which are suffering from bad sound and picture quality? But please do not stop with today, keep talking to us. Because what the government machinery is doing is to ensure that our family of channels including Geo News, Geo, Geo Super and Aag TV are constantly thrown at the fag end of channels list and our broadcast quality is constantly being tempered with, resulting in picture freeze and inaudible sound etc. At the same time the operators are also insistent upon showing Indian channel programming as well.
The simple truth is that we are being persecuted for speaking the truth about the government. Please help us in this fight for social change by helping us get our rights. If this culture of intimidation and disregard for law and fair play is to change then you must come forward as an agent of change and be a vocal witness against such government tyranny. We need your help, and we need it now! We may need your help in the Supreme Court also.
Please call us on toll free number 0800-00005 and we shall tell you how you can help us.
Source: The News
Date:3/19/2011
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