News censorship termed backward step

KARACHI (PPI) - The Paris-based international organisation of journalists Reporters Sans Frontiers (Reporters Without Borders) has expressed extreme concern about two rulings clamping down on electronic media in Pakistan that represent a very serious backward step.
Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA) has ordered some radio stations not to broadcast BBC Urdu-language news programmes, while Parliament is preparing to ratify drastic censorship dating from the era of General Pervez Musharraf, the organization said in a release on Wednesday.
“We thought that Pakistan had rid itself of the censorship impulse, but PEMRA and the political parties are once again making decisions that go against the interests of the Pakistani people”, the world-wide press freedom organisation said.
“The country is going through a very difficult period, but that cannot be an argument for backing or writing into law a system of censorship that would block media development for years. Two years to the day since Pervez Musharraf signed the “black laws” against the press, it would appalling if a democratically-elected parliament were once again to impose censorship”, Reporters Without Borders said.
“We urge members of parliament to make themselves defenders of media freedom, which has been so vital for the restoration of democracy in the country”, said secretary general, Jean-Francois Julliard. The parliamentary information committee chaired by an MP from the ruling Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) on 29 October, decided that legal provisions on electronic media set out in November 2007, should be incorporated into the PEMRA act. These articles ban TV stations from broadcasting footage that could “disturb the public order” including statements from extremist groups, or those ridiculing or defaming the head of state, the armed forces or the judicial system. Programme presenters are targeted in clause 6 that bans them from putting out any news “prejudicial to Pakistan’s ideology” and state sovereignty.