PEMRA has called a consultative meeting to be held at its headquarters on Monday, August 27 to set parameters to prescribe the term “obscenity” on electronic media.
The meeting is set to engage all stakeholders including veteran religious leaders, PBA, Cable Association, writers, columnists, journalists, academicians, media experts, advertisers and contents producers in consultation process to deliberate upon description of term “obscenity” along with parameters vis-à-vis the socio-cultural and religious values.
The PEMRA chairman said though no specific definition of the obscenity or vulgarity existed anywhere in the constitution or Pakistan Penal Code or even in PEMRA laws, PEMRA believed that these terminologies needed to be defined to guide electronic media that what was acceptable or unacceptable to Pakistani society. For this purpose, PEMRA in its comprehensive Draft Content Regulations of February 2012 had inscribed some definitions of obscene content which were derived from international metaphors. The Draft Regulations were posted on PEMRA website and were also massively publicized to fetch comments from public and stakeholders. The revised draft of said regulations is already uploaded on PEMRA website for comments of public and stakeholders. The consultative meeting is likely to be attended by Justice (r) Wajihuddin Ahmed, Qazi Hussain Ahmed (ex-chief of Jamat-e-Islami), Ansar Abbassi, Muhammad Hussain Mehanti, Lt Gen (r) Abdul Qayyum, Oriya Maqbool Jan, Javed Jabbar, Mehdi Hassan, Muhammad Ziauddin (Executive Editor, Express Tribune), Mazhar Abbass, Fauzia Saeed (HR Activist), representatives of Pakistan Broadcasters Association (PBA), Cable Operators Association of Pakistan (CAP), Pakistan Advertisers Society (PAS), United Producers Association and PEMRA officials.
