The Senate Standing Committee on Information and Broadcasting on Monday expressed dissatisfaction over the performance of the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA) and decided to hold a meeting to discuss the authority’s affairs. Senator Kamil Ali Agha chaired the meeting and said the PEMRA had failed to take punitive action against TV channels that presented an intolerable attitude towards political party heads. Many television dramas, especially Turkish teleplays dubbed in Urdu, aired objectionable content and nobody could watch them with their families, he added.
Information Secretary Rashid Ahmed said the PEMRA had taken notice of these programmes but the government did not want to shut down private channels as it could be perceived as an attack on media’s freedom. He said that whenever a channel was served a notice its management went to the court and obtained a stay order. The committee also expressed concern, over the screening of Indian films in Pakistani cinemas and Indian advertisements on Pakistani TV channels. Ahmed said there should be a ban on Indian advertisements and called for the establishment of a censorship committee to be established for this purpose.
The committee issued directives to the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting to provide a detailed report on attacks on journalists since 2002. The committee said the list provided by the ministry earlier was incomplete. Ahmed informed the committee that his ministry had written a letter to the Interior Ministry which had provided details for Sindh, KP and the Federal Capital Administration. No details had been provided by the Punjab and Balochistan governments, he added. Ahmed further said that his ministry had taken all possible steps for the protection of journalists but the issue was a provincial matter. Pakistan Television MD Yousuf Beg Mirza gave a detailed briefing on the organisation’s operations. He said the PTV planned to launch an English channel in the first week of January and its purpose was to have a better outreach to foreign viewers and present Pakistan’s perspective. The committee recommended the PTV management to consider contract and daily-wage employees for regularisation who did not meet the required criteria but had served the organisation for several years.
PEMRA Chairman Dr Abdul Jabbar said the authority had never issued instructions for the closure of any channels. He said in November, due to a dispute between Pakistan Broadcasters Association (PBA) and cable operators in Karachi, the transmission of some TV channels had been blocked. Dr Jabbar said he had personally visited Karachi and met office bearers of both parties to get the channels’ transmission restored.
