National

PEMRA bans Amir Liaquat, his show over hate speech

January 26, 2017

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Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (Pemra), Thursday (today) banned TV anchor Amir Liaquat.

The media watchdog added, “In the case of non-compliance of the above orders, the licence for the channel BOL News shall be suspended with immediate effect.”

“Amir Liaquat and his programme has been banned with immediate effect for preaching hate,” a notification issued by the Pemra read.

“Aamir Liaquat, the host of the programme named ‘Aisay Nahi Chalay Ga’ shall not host any programme or appear in any manner, including but not limited to, as a guest, analyst, reporter, actor, in audio, video beeper, promo/advertisement on BOL News,” the notice further read.

The authority stated that it took this decision after it found that Liaquat has violated several clauses of the Pemra Ordinance and Rules in his programme which the authority had been monitoring for several weeks.

The Pemra statement made it cleat that if Amir Liaquat “continues to abuse freedom of speech and violates PEMRA Code of Conduct 2015, PEMRA Ordinance 2002, Rules and Regulations on any other TV channel(s), the Authority shall invoke Section 27 of PEMRA Ordinance 2002 against that TV channel.”

Earlier, social activist Jibran Nasir has filed an official complaint with the Pemra against TV anchor Amir Liaquat Hussain for ‘maligning’ him.

In his complaint letter to the media watchdog, Jibran said the anchor of BOL Network had started a “malicious, defamatory and life to endanger campaign” against him and the bloggers who went missing between January 4 to 8.

“…on 19 January, Amir Liaquat carried on this vicious campaign against me asserting accusations of blasphemy and went to accuse me of being the admin of the Facebook page “Bhensaa” and associated all its blasphemous content and posts to me,” Jibran wrote in his letter available to local media.