=> Islamabad: She is one of the most popular faces on
Islamabad: She is one of the most popular faces on Pakistani Television and perhaps the only woman journalist who dared to discuss the nitty-gritties of Pakistani politics on her late-night show The Parliament Gallery.
No wonder then that her show was one of the first shows to be pulled off air hours before Emergency was imposed.
Asma Sherazi remembers those last moments, her last words before her channel was pulled off air.
“Fareb ujaalon ko dene waale, kuchh aur zulmat badha rahe hain, diye jalaana toh door thehra, diye sulagte bujha rahe hain.,” she recalls.
Since that day, the only thing that hasn’t changed for Asma Sherazi is her headscarf. From being the face of Pakistani politics on ARY-ONE World News channel, today she spends her days at her office in Islamabad reading the supportive mails that her fans have been sending her.
“It’s really very strange because in government circles, my show was very popular. It was quite balanced,” she says.
Ironically, it was during President Mushrraf’s regime that private broadcasting saw exponential growth in Pakistan. But when he imposed the emergency, free media became one of its first casualties. How does one explain this paradox?
Sherazi is one of the six news anchors who have been banned from television screens since the Emergency.
Nusrat Javed is another. His show Bolta Pakistan is also off air. But unlike Sherazi, he doesn’t sound impatient. Having spent many more years living with martial laws and Emergencies, Javed says he is now used to this kind of bullying.
“It didn’t surprise me because journalists in Pakistan are used to it. During Zia’s time, we were flogged in public and we’ve had a long history of media’s struggle in this country,” he says.
So what does the future hold for them? While Sherazi is impatient to get back on air (“Our audience is missing us on television,” she says), Javed is willing to wait. “Like everything else this too shall pass,” he signs off on a positive note.
Source: Dawn
Date:12/10/2007
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