The BBC said Friday it welcomed a promise by Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani to investigate the blocking of the BBC World News channel in the country after it showed a documentary about the Taliban.
Pakistani cable operators pulled the channel nationwide on November 29 amid a row over the “Secret Pakistan” documentary and amid anger over NATO air strikes that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers.
In a statement issued in London, the BBC said Pakistan’s Prime Minister had pledged in an interview with the broadcaster that he would “look into” the ban.
“We remain deeply concerned that BBC World News has been taken off-air by the Cable Association of Pakistan,” a BBC spokesperson said.
Gilani said in the interview that Pakistani authorities supported media freedom and had abolished “Draconian” laws from the past.
“And we have given freedom of media, and you are a witness here that how many channels are working day in and day out against the government. And if this is a specific which you have mentioned, I will look into it,” the BBC quoted him as saying.
The two-part BBC documentary “Secret Pakistan” shown last month accuses parts of Pakistan’s intelligence service of complicity with Taliban militants.
Pakistan has aroused increasing criticism overseas and from human rights campaigners within the country over censorship.
Following is a complaint I sent to Chairman PREMA at the email address provided at site. It came back as" Delivery to the following recipient failed permanently".
1. BBC is off the air on cable [I don’t mind that at all] but pls give us one unbiased [less biased] European news station, one Chinese/Iranian/Russian news station and one North American station.
2. It is also very important that our local news stations do not play sensational music while reading news headlines. They have to be serious with no back ground distractions. It looks terrible to see the newscaster playing music over dead people after a bomb blast. Then you wonder why everyone takes Pakistan as a non-serious and trivial republic. IMPLEMENT THIS NON POLITICAL DEMAND OF THE PEOPLE!!
good effort but it wont work out well for our nation. Vulgar Moive channels should also be banned.
If BBC continue to act like an agent like it has then it better be BANNED IN PAKISTAN.
SHAHID HUSSEIN QABOOLPURIA,
LAHORE, PAKISTAN
but it is available with certain cablenetworks
its also on youtube for the world to watch. lets ban the internet too
No channel should be banned. We should man up and face all the allegations. I watched Secret Pakistan on YouTube. Let us not be like our friends China, who have censored everything they can possibly censor from their public. Secret Pakistan is biased, yes, but then again, a lot of what they claim is true. Maybe the vocabulary is accusatory, but they have hit dead center on more than 75% of the facts hidden from public. Its supported by interviews from Pakistani military personnel as well!
I personally feel that PTA and PEMRA are introducing censorship to a great extent in Pakistan and playing on the borderlines using the public sentiment as a shoulder to stand on. The recent PTA 'banned list of text messaging vocabulary', blocking of Twitter and Facebook for BlackBerry applications on the BlackBerry Internet Services plan, not allowing 3G (giving out licenses and then taking them back because they figured they could make more money on them), and implementing the above mentioned 'draconian' laws all show the level of censorship here in Pakistan. How long will public sentiment be allowed to lead to the compromise of our rights? Let the people do what they may, they are answerable to God and to the courts, not to the public. Rationality should decide laws, not swaying decisions of an angry mob.
BBC should be banned …. so that no other media channel can publish such rubbish against any country
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