Pakistan suspends new curbs on media

PAKISTAN: The Pakistani government has suspended the introduction of tight restrictions on broadcasters following an uproar at home and criticism abroad, officials said Thursday.

President Pervez Musharrraf issued a decree on Monday giving the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA) extra powers after the media criticised his suspension of the country’s chief justice.

The move sparked pandemonium in parliament on Wednesday with scuffles between slogan-chanting journalists and government officials. There were also several protests around the country earlier in the week.

An official statement said that Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz, after meeting with broadcasters and newspaper chiefs on Wednesday, had decided that the decree “would be reviewed in totality by a six-member committee.”

The committee of three senior media members and three government officials will submit its report to the prime minister “within the shortest possible time,” it said.

“Till such time the proceedings under the PEMRA Amendment Ordinance, 2007 will not be initiated against electronic media,” it added.

The regulator had been empowered to seal the premises or confiscate the equipment of broadcasters and suspend their licenses. The government earlier blocked transmissions of three private television stations.

New York-based group Human Rights Watch urged military ruler Musharraf to lift the restrictions in a statement Weednesday, denouncing the move as a disgraceful assault on press freedom.

“Musharraf should realize that stifling the media will not prevent power ebbing away from him. It will only hasten it,” said Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch.

The group also slammed threats made against Pakistani journalists, after reporters working for international news organisations found bullets tucked into envelopes and planted in their cars last month.

Earlier Pakistani journalists chanted slogans in parliament and scuffled with officials Wednesday during the protest against curbs on the media by military ruler President Pervez Musharraf.

The chaos forced the speaker of the national assembly to call a half-hour adjournment of the session, during which the upcoming budget was meant to be discussed, an AFP reporter witnessed.

Government ministers condemned the actions of the journalists but opposition MPs said it was a result of a crackdown on television stations amid a crisis over Musharraf’s ouster of the country’s top judge. The parliament incident happened after dozens of reporters walked out of the press gallery in protest at the new measures.

The journalists later returned to the gallery, where some of them roughed up two government officials whom they accused of posing as journalists.

Islamabad, Thursday, AFP