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RSF slams PEMRA over surge in censorship

* Reporters Sans Frontiers says country’s situation can’t justify curbs on media freedom

Staff Report

PESHAWAR: An international media watchdog on Tuesday said it was extremely concerned about two rulings clamping down on electronic media freedom in Pakistan, which “represent a very serious backward step”.

Paris-based Reporters Without Borders said in a press statement that the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA) had ordered some radio stations not to broadcast BBC Urdu’s news programmes, while parliament was preparing to ratify drastic censorship dating from the Musharraf era.

"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 press freedom organisation said.

Not an excuse: It said the country was going through a very difficult period, but that could not justify 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 be appalling if a democratically elected parliament were once again to impose censorship,” it added.

RWB Secretary General Jean-François Julliard urged members of parliament to defend media freedom, as the media had been “so vital for the restoration of democracy in the country”. The parliamentary information committee, chaired by a lawmaker from the ruling Pakistan People’s Party on October 29 decided that legal provisions on the 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 public order” and ridicule or defame the head of the state, the armed forces or the judicial system, the Paris-based organisation said.

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