As the country’s electronic media’s regulatory watchdog, Pemra has its hands full. After all, there are a host of channels that are beamed across the airwaves these days, a far cry from the early days of broadcast media deregulation. Then, there is the legion of local radio stations that also make their way into homes, cars and AM/FM enabled cell phones.
That’s a lot of work. But Pemra is doing its thing. To name one instance of the efficiency of the watchdog, it banned this ice-cream ad by Igloo.
The ad, apparently, contained content that was “indecent, objectionable and against the accepted standards of morality.”
But that doesn’t mean the watchdog is, in any capacity, curtailing the freedom of expression of our brave pundits. Consider, for instance, Orya Maqbool Jan, whose talking points in the featured video are all but an incitement to actual physical violence against the country’s Ahmadi community.
In its infinite wisdom, Pemra has thought that an advertisement for an ice-cream – showing a model eating a bar, which, if one squinted hard enough, and were perverted enough, was risque, apparently.
But a fire-breathing talking head on TV calling out for the throats of a minority being slit still doesn’t qualify as offensive enough.