Pakistan censored TV coverage of judge protests: RWB
ISLAMABAD (March 15 2007): A global media watchdog condemned Pakistan government on Wednesday for allegedly censoring the coverage of protests against the sacking of the country’s chief justice.
Paris-based ‘Reporters Without Borders’ said that Pakistan’s Media Regulatory Authority suspended broadcasts by the private Aaj and Geo television stations after they screened footage on Monday of clashes between police and lawyers.
The images from Lahore included footage of lawyers covered in blood and being beaten by riot police with batons, following President Pervez Musharraf’s firing of top judge Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry on Friday.
“We fear that, in this presidential election year, the independence of the media is going to be under attack from the government,” the watchdog said in a statement.
“President Pervez Musharraf must immediately stop this kind of authoritarian intervention, which jeopardises the freedom of Pakistan’s journalists to decide what they cover and how they cover it,” it added. A journalist working for one of the two stations told ‘Reporters Without Borders’ that Pakistan’s media regulator had ordered cable and satellite operators to “black out stations that carried images of the police violence.”
The stations withdrew the footage from subsequent reports, the group said. However, the watchdog said that Pakistan’s Information Minister Mohammad Ali Durrani had denied any censorship.
“Under no circumstances did the government ban the media from broadcasting these images. This is a decision of the Supreme Judicial Council. The media are very dear to us, and no TV station has been censored,” it quoted him as saying. Lawyers across Pakistan boycotted courts for a third day on Wednesday.
Source: Business Recorder
Date:3/15/2007
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