Government slammed for self-censorship criteria
* TV journalist says govt pressuring channel to fire some journalists
* Foreign TV executives and editors back censored Pakistani TV
PESHAWAR: International media watchdog Reporters Sans Frontieres (RSF) has slammed the government for making self-censorship a criterion to lift a ban on private TV news channels that will drop talk-show programmes critical of President Gen Pervez Musharraf.
“The government’s blackmailing of Pakistan’s TV stations, banned since November 3, is unacceptable,” the Paris-based watchdog said in a statement on Friday after Aaj TV and Dawn News channels were back on the cable network on Thursday.
“The authorities have asked TV executives to eliminate outspoken programmes, sideline the most independent journalists and sign a code of conduct requiring self-censorship,” the statement said.
The Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA) banned all local private news channels and foreign channels, including the BBC and CNN, on November 3, the day when Gen Musharraf declared emergency rule in the country.
“We are pleased for Pakistani viewers, who were desperate for news information, but we continue to demand the unconditional return of all TV stations. We also condemn yesterday’s arrests of three journalists, two in Quetta and one near Peshawar,” the statement said. Despite some conditional relaxation in ban on private news channels, the government was still holding the ban on Geo News and ARY TV because the two channels were resisting government pressures.
Govt pressuring: A senior journalist at Geo News said the government was “insisting to fire” some senior journalists of the channel but the top management were refusing to “bow down”.
“We are still off air and don’t know for how long we will remain so,” the journalist told Daily Times, wishing not to be named.
Aaj TV’s news editor told RSF on Friday that the government had told cable operators that they could resume the channel broadcast after it had dropped two talk shows — Live With Talat and Bolta Pakistan.
ARY TV journalists said the government was demanding the dropping of talk shows presented by Kashif Abbasi and Asma Shirazi as a precondition to allow the station to be back on air.
Executives and editors back censored Pakistani TV: TV news executives and editors around the world in a joint statement said, “We, executives and editors of TV stations in Europe, Asia and the Americas, call on President Pervez Musharraf to immediately rescind this decision, which is contrary to free enterprise and the freedom to report the news, and we express our solidarity with the Pakistani TV stations and their staff,” they said.
The signatories include Mark Wood, the chief executive of Britain’s ITN, Chuck Lustig, the foreign news director of ABC News in the United States, Torsten Rossmann, the head of the executive board of Germany’s N24, Jörg Harzem, N24’s chief editor, Nik Niethammer, the chief editor of Germany’s Sat1 and Guillaume Dubois, the deputy director-general of France’s BFMTV.
They also include Peter Kloeppel, the news editor of Germany’s RTL, Yves Bigot, the regional service director of Belgium’s RTBF, Saad Mohseni, the chairman of Afghanistan’s Moby Media Group, which operates Tolo TV, Stéphane Rosenblatt, the head of the Belgian station RTL-TVI, and Gilles Marchant, the head of the Swiss TV station TSR.
Source: Daily Times
Date:11/17/2007
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