=> PAKISTAN ELECTRONIC MEDIA REGULATORY AUTHORITY (PE
PAKISTAN ELECTRONIC MEDIA REGULATORY AUTHORITY (PEMRA) Chairman and ex-policeman Iftikhar Rasheed said on Monday that the authority had barred television channels from live broadcasting of political rallies. He said PEMRA wanted to avoid the airing of “inappropriate remarks” in the election rallies. The “time delay” mechanism means that live transmissions “reach viewers after a gap of a few seconds during which any unwanted remark or scene is filtered out”.
The Pakistan Broadcasters Association (PBA) have seemingly agreed with the PEMRA chairman that the time-delay mechanism would he followed as it was done when the dismissed Chief Justice of Pakistan was touring the country addressing the district bars. The main objective was to filter out the rather emotional opinion being expressed about the President and the government of Mr Shaukat Aziz.
Today, the ex-chief minister of Punjab, Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi is equally “filterable” when he talks about his opponents in his rallies. But what continues to gall is the ordinance of November 3 that adds more punitive clauses to the PEMRA Ordinance of 2002, under which any anchorperson, moderator or host propagating any opinion “prejudicial to the ideology or sovereignty of Pakistan” or “defaming the head of state, or members of the armed forces, or executive, legislative or judicial organs of the state”, will attract severe penalties including big fines and closures. This law cannot be applied without curtailing the freedom of the media to operate in Pakistan.
Source: Daily Times
Date:12/26/2007
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