Tag: PMDA

  • Ministry of Information to form joint committee for media authority bill

    Ministry of Information to form joint committee for media authority bill

    The Ministry of Information has decided to form a joint committee after consultations with representatives of all media institutions and organisations.

    The committee will review the proposed media regulation and make recommendations. The Pakistan Media Development Authority (PMDA) has apparently been postponed for the time being.

    Journalists staged a protest in front of the Parliament House against the proposed PMDA, which aims to muzzle media freedom. The protest started on Sunday, September 12. Journalists marched from the National Press Club to the Parliament House and stayed overnight.

    As journalists continued with sit-in outside of the Parliament House against the government’s proposed PMDA, prominent leaders from political parties, student unions, and members of the civil society also joined in to show solidarity.

    In a first in Pakistan’s history, reporters were not allowed to enter a joint session of Parliament on Monday, September 13.

    Parliamentary reporters were to be present in the press gallery for President Alvi’s address but entered the hallway to find that the door was locked. The press gallery was closed for the journalists.

    The Parliamentary Reporters Association (PRA) strongly condemned the closure of the press gallery and said, “Closing the gallery is the worst dictatorship.”

    However, National Assembly (NA) Speaker Asad Qaiser said that he closed the doors of the press gallery during the president’s speech to a joint session of parliament after getting ‘reports’ that there was a possibility of a ruckus between two journalists’ groups.

    The Speaker claimed that he made this decision after consulting the PRA.

    “I couldn’t afford a fight between two groups in Parliament which could have resulted in the disrespect of media and the House,” Qaiser said adding, “however, there was some misunderstanding.”

  • President Alvi addresses joint session in NA amid media protest

    President Dr Arif Alvi addressed a joint sitting of parliament on Monday, marking the start of the fourth parliamentary year of the National Assembly amid chaos outside parliament.

    The President of Pakistan congratulated the members of parliament at the start of the new legislative year and expressed hope that democratic values and the “tradition of tolerance” flourish in Pakistan.

    Amid loud protests by the Opposition, President Alvi said: “Despite you making noise, you will have to accept the reality.”

    Dr Alvi briefly discussed the country’s progress and shed light on various topics.

    Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs)

    President Alvi stressed the need to introduce electoral reforms in order to bring transparency to elections in Pakistan.

    Financial Action Task Force (FATF)

    “People paying tax in such large numbers shows complete trust in government policies,” Alvi said, congratulating the government for devising and implementing laws and procedures to address FATF requirements.

    Sexual harassment cases

    Alvi said the government had paid “special attention” to the rights of women.

    “In recent days, incidents of sexual violence against women emerged due to which everyone is sad and I think it is a national responsibility to take steps to curb such incidents,” he said.

    President Alvi added that the government had taken measures to stop such violence and it was also society’s responsibility to play its role. “Making videos while an [harassment] incident is taking place does not suit the Pakistani society, so it will have to protect women so they can wander freely.”

    Corruption

    Because of corruption and wrong priorities, we were not only deprived of progress but also left behind in the world in human development indicators,” Alvi said.

    Health Sector

    He said that “18 million families were benefitting from the health cards so far”.

    “Pakistan is going towards universal health coverage, he added while praising the government’s efforts,” he concluded.

    Kamyab Jawan Programme

    The President noted that the government had set aside Rs260bn through which 12 million families will be given cash income, while Rs100bn had been earmarked for the Kamyab Jawan Programme to give loans to the youth to start businesses.

    Opposition walkout

    During his address, the Opposition kept booing and at last walked out of the session.

    The Opposition also accused the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government and National Assembly (NA) Speaker Asad Qaiser of violating the Constitution by not allowing a debate on the presidential address through­out the third parliamentary year, which ended on August 13.

    Politicians including Shehbaz sharif Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari, Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, Sherry Rehman, Mian Raza Rabbani and Ahsan Iqbal joined the protest and showed solidarity with the journalists.

    “Thanks to all friends and well-wishers who were sending messages of solidarity the whole night whole day, we just finished a 24 hours protest camp in front of the parliament against threats to media and new proposed law for legalising censorship in Pakistan,” Hamid Mir tweeted, mentioning the end of the protest.

    President Alvi did not mention the journalists’ protest against the Pakistan Media Development Authority (PMDA).

  • Politicians, civil society unite with journalists, support protest against media authority bill

    Politicians, civil society unite with journalists, support protest against media authority bill

    As journalists continue with sit-in outside of the Parliament House, against the government’s proposed Pakistan Media Development Authority (PMDA), prominent leaders from political parties, student unions, and members of the civil society also joined in to show solidarity.

    The protest began on Sunday and is said to continue until President Dr Arif Alvi’s address to the joint session of parliament on Monday.

    Former Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) Information Sec­retary Marriyum Aurangzeb, and MNA Mohsin Dawar, among others, visited the protest site on Sunday night to extend their support.

    Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) president, Shehbaz Sharif speaking on the media authority bill termed it as “black law” and expressed solidarity with journalists. He said the media had fought a war for its freedom and no one could snatch it. 

    https://twitter.com/pmln_org/status/1437373043542736902

    “The government doesn’t have the guts to pass it and we won’t allow it,” added Shehbaz warning the government against passing the “black law” or bear the consequences.

    He tweeted in solidarity with the protestors and said, “PTI government is demolishing every institution that represents democracy. We support journalists in their struggle against PMDA.”

    Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari Monday slammed the Pakistan Media Regulatory Authority (PMDA), saying that the proposed bill is an “attack on the freedom of media and judiciary.”

    The PPP chairman vowed his party will not let the government get away with snatching livelihoods from the masses. He showed solidarity with journalists who have been attacked, saying that the PPP “will not be satisfied till they [journalists] are not satisfied.”

    “Even if they manage to have this black law passed, journalists will [struggle to] have it abolished,” he added.

    Bilawal warned the government that if it tried to have the PMDA law passed via force, the PPP will challenge it in the courts. The PPP chairman said he feared the government will try to pass the bill during a joint sitting of the Parliament.

    Bilawal said his party will attend the joint sitting of the Parliament with a two-point agenda; to advocate for the rights of 20,000 government employees who were sacked and to campaign for freedom of speech.

    PPP leaders, Senator Sherry Rehman and Raza Rabbani, visited the protest camp and addressed the protesters.

    “We have repealed all the ordinance regarding media censorship, whether it was Ayub Khan or Zia-Ul-Haq. This is why the government won’t bring this on the Parliament floor because we will repeal the PMDA bill and they are scared”

    Marriyum Aurangzeb, along with PML-N leader Ahsan Iqbal, also visited the protest site on Monday.

    Addressing the protesters, Iqbal criticised the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government for “attacking and attempting to muzzle” the media.

    Referring to the PMDA bill, he called it a “conspiracy” and said if the bill was passed, “democracy will die in this country”.

  • ‘Media Martial Law’, Journalists sit in protest against proposed media authority bill

    ‘Media Martial Law’, Journalists sit in protest against proposed media authority bill

    Pakistani journalists are protesting in front of the Parliament House against the proposed Pakistan Media Development Authority (PMDA), which aims to muzzle media freedom. The on-going protest started on Sunday. Journalists marched from the National Press Club to the Parliament House and stayed overnight.

    They said the sit-in would continue till President Dr Arif Alvi’s address to the joint session of parliament, which is scheduled to assemble on Monday.

    DETAILS OF THE PROTEST

    Renowned journalists including Mazhar Abbas, Hamid Mir, Fahd Husain, Kashif Abbasi, Saleem Safi, Asma Shirazi, Gharidah Farooqi Imtiaz Alam, and Afzal Butt are participating in the protest, headed by the Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists (PFUJ).

    PFUJ general secretary Nasir Zaidi, while talking to Voicepk.net said, “Prior to this, we struggled against every law to control the press in the eras of dictators, and we will struggle against such laws even today.”

    Senior journalist Afzal Butt said, “Many attempts had been made in the past to silence the media by dictators, but journalists successfully fought for their rights and this time too, the journalist community would protect freedom of the press.”

    Journalist Imtiaz Alam stated that, “The government through the PMDA was trying to impose ‘media martial law’. “as per Dawn.

    Journalists and politicians are criticising the government. “Parliamentary reporters have banned from sitting in the press gallery of Parliament for joint session,” tweeted PPP’s Senator Sherry Rehman.

    SUPPORT BY JOURNALISTS

    Other journalists have expressed their concerns and showed solidarity with fellow journalists on social media accounts.

    https://twitter.com/zburki/status/1436954006820118537

    INTERNATIONAL CONDEMNATION

    Pakistani journalists in Britain also condemned the Pakistan government’s plans to establish the PMDA.

    “The officials of the High Commission called journalists individually and asked them not to hold the protest outside the High Commission premises and also issued threats of serious consequences for organising the protest,” wrote Murtaza Ali Shah for Geo News.

    “The journalists particularly singled out the current information minister [Fawad Chaudhry] for first playing his role in the economic murder of journalists and now pushing through a black law to completely finish the private media which provides thousands of jobs to media workers,” he added.

  • ‘Army chief agrees fake news, disinformation a threat to national security’: Fawad

    ‘Army chief agrees fake news, disinformation a threat to national security’: Fawad

    Federal Minister for information and Broadcasting, Fawad Chaudhry took to Twitter and said, “Chief of Army Staff (COAS) General Qamar Javed Bajwa, while addressing the Defence Day function, said fake news and disinformation were a threat to national security.”

    Fawad wrote, “This analysis is based on the truth, and therefore the Pakistan Media Development Authority (PMDA) is being brought to deal with these threats, as yellow journalism happens to be the biggest threat to freedom of media.”

    Representatives of media organisations rejected the proposed PMDA and termed the concept as an unconstitutional and draconian law against the freedom of press and expression and a step toward imposing state control to regulate all segments of media under over-centralised body.

    The Human Rights Watch (HRW) in a statement said that as part of its crackdown on freedom of expression, the government of Pakistan is seeking broad new powers in the garb of the proposed PMDA.

    Information Minister faced a hard time as members of the National Assembly Standing Committee on Information and Broadcasting demanded to see the draft law of PMDA.

    Spokesperson of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), Marriyum Aurangzeb, demanded that the draft of the law should be presented for the establishment of the authority instead of a verbal briefing by the minister.

    Adding to her point, Aurangzeb said, “The attitude of the information minister was dictatorial.”

    However, Fawad Chaudhry said that some people did not want to have any regulations in the media industry, adding that Pakistan cannot turn a blind eye to conspiracies being formulated against it.

  • PMDA: Why all the secrecy?

    PMDA: Why all the secrecy?

    The mystery shrouding the elusive proposed draft of the Pakistan Media Development Authority (PMDA) is quite intriguing. Some consultations have been held with journalists, civil society members, and parliamentarians but without a copy of the proposed draft. Members of the National Assembly (NA) Standing Committee on Information and Broadcasting on Thursday demanded that the draft be shared instead of verbal briefings by the Information Ministry. Chairman of the NA standing committee Mian Javed Latif then formed a sub-committee, which will be headed by Marriyum Aurangzeb with Nafisa Shah and Kanwal Shozab as its members. Let’s see if the proposed draft will now be shared with the sub-committee. 

    Last month, representatives of media organisations issued a joint statement that rejected the proposed media authority. They said that it was unconstitutional and deemed it as a draconian law. It seems that this is yet another tactic by the government to curb media freedom. Human Rights Watch (HRW) recently also issued a statement on the PMDA saying that the Pakistani government is “seeking broad new powers to control the media as part of its crackdown on freedom of expression. Journalists, human rights activists, and political leaders across that country have raised the alarm about proposed legislation that would bolster powers of the government to censor and restrict the media.” The government reacted to HRW’s statement by issuing a rejoinder through the Pakistan Embassy in the US challenging the human rights organisation’s assertions on PMDA. Patricia Gossman, HRW’s associate director for the Asia division, asked for a draft, which has so far not been shared with anyone. 

    It is quite worrying that in a country where media freedom is already quite curtailed, where interviews have been stopped from going on air or stopped mid-way, where anchors have been taken off-air, where there are now so many red lines that media organisations have to tread very carefully, where attacks on journalists have become frequent and culprits are still at large, where online trolling of journalists has become a norm, where the government issues reports of social media trends and hashtags it deems anti-state, where government officials keep on targeting journalists and media organisations without any shred of evidence, a new media authority with immense powers is being proposed without sharing the details of the proposed law and/or taking the main stakeholders on board.

    We hope that the government will share the proposed draft with all stakeholders so that the mystery shrouding this media authority ends once and for all. There is already a lot of mistrust between the government and the media. We hope the government will listen to the legitimate concerns of media organisations and not dismiss them. A free and independent media is essential for any democracy. Pakistan is a democracy and we hope the government will not undermine it in any way. 

  • Fawad Chaudhry faces backlash, NA members demand draft of proposed media authority

    Fawad Chaudhry faces backlash, NA members demand draft of proposed media authority

    Information Minister Fawad Chaudhry faced a hard time in the committee as members demanded to see the draft law of the Pakistan Media Development Authority (PMDA), reported Kalbe Ali for Dawn.

    Spokesperson of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), Marriyum Aurangzeb, demanded that the draft of the law should be presented for the establishment of the authority instead of a verbal briefing by the minister.

    Adding to her point, Aurangzeb said, “The attitude of the information minister was dictatorial.”

    Fawad Chaudhry said that some people did not want to have any regulations in the media industry, adding that Pakistan cannot turn a blind eye to conspiracies being formulated against it.

    “It is important to regulate the media,” the minister said, adding: “We have studied the laws of the United Kingdom (UK), India, Australia, Singapore, and European nations before formulating the draft PMDA law.”

    “But most of all, there will be no compromise over the rights of media workers and against floating of fake news and there was a severe pressure against the Authority regarding these two things,” said Fawad.

    After reflection on the proposed PMDA, the chairman of the committee PML-N’s Mian Javed Latif decided to form a subcommittee, which will be headed by Aurangzeb with Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s (PTI) Kanwal Shauzab and Pakistan People’s Party’s (PPP) Nafisa Shah as its members.

  • Government’s priorities revolve around how to tease the Opposition: Maryam

    Government’s priorities revolve around how to tease the Opposition: Maryam

    Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz Vice-President Maryam Nawaz, while speaking to the media on Wednesday said that “The sitting government is not concerned about lawlessness, inflation, or increasing crimes.”

    ” Its [Government’s] priorities revolve around how to tease the Opposition, silence the media, and how to plan the next rigging,” said Maryam.

    Lashing out at the performance of the Pakistan Tehreek-e Insaf (PTI) government, Maryam said that the parameters of performance are measured in good or bad.

    She described the incumbent government’s past three-year performance as “nothing short of destruction”. 

    In her opinion, the PML-N president Shehbaz Sharif was talking about a national consensus not a formation of a national government.

    “The country is in dire need of national reconciliation barring this government. All others parts must unite and think how the government should be ousted,” added Maryam.

    She commented on the Media Regulatory Authority, saying that the government is creating hurdles for the media, adding that the bill was a continuation of the draconian government’s incumbent policies aimed at censoring the media. 

    In response to a question on Nawaz Sharif’s return, she said: “There is no precedent for what the PML-N has endured. Nawaz Sharif has taken far more than was required.”

    “I would like to say again today that this is an illegitimate and incompetently imposed government. And what they are is not accountability but revenge,” reiterated Maryam.

    “Circumstances have changed a lot. Very soon, you will see a lot of things change. Nawaz Sharif will return to the country when it is necessary for him to do so,” said Maryam.

  • Fawad blasts Opposition for criticising the new media authority bill without reading it

    Fawad blasts Opposition for criticising the new media authority bill without reading it

    Federal Minister for Information and Broadcasting Fawad Chaudhry took to Twitter to lash out at the Opposition stating that President Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) Shehbaz Sharif and Chairperson Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Bilawal Bhutto “have not read a word of election reform and Pakistan Media Development Authority (PMDA) nor do they know what the proposals are.”

    “Our Opposition has only one role, to unite with the anti-government satan,” added Fawad.

     Shehbaz Sharif on Monday vowed to go against any government efforts to pass legislation related to the media.

    Shehbaz Sharif said no party in parliament will support this “black law” except for the government.

    “We will join forces with all political parties […] and take Opposition into confidence against this black law,” Shehbaz said, adding: “This is a matter of life and death for independent journalism, democracy, and constitutional freedom.”

    “If any other government had imposed such restrictions, it would have been overthrown,” said Shehbaz.

    Bilawal Bhutto also criticised the government for the proposed bill. He said, “We like it when Human Rights Watch (HRW) writes about injustice in Indian occupied Kashmir but go silent when it’s about Pakistan.”

    Taking a jibe at the government for its double standards, Bilawal added, “Human Rights Watch statement on PMDA legislation to silence Pakistan media must be read and this black law should be rejected as its against the freedom of speech in the country.”

  • Govt seeking new powers to control media by setting up PMDA: Human Rights Watch

    Govt seeking new powers to control media by setting up PMDA: Human Rights Watch

    As part of its crackdown on freedom of expression, the government is seeking broad new powers in the garb of the proposed Pakistan Media Development Authority (PMDA), says Human Rights Watch (HRW).

    “The government claims an ordinance setting up the Pakistan Media Development Authority (PMDA) would replace the ‘fractured’ regulatory environment and fragmented media regulations currently in place. The proposed PMDA would bring all media in Pakistan – print, television, radio, films, and digital media – under one regulator,” HRW said in its statement.

    The PMDA law would grant new unchecked powers to the government-controlled regulator by setting up special “media tribunals” that will have the power to impose steep fines for media organisations and journalists who violate its code of conduct or publish content it deems to be “fake news”.

    The proposed law would also increase government control by allowing government officials to be appointed to key positions.

    With journalists under relentless attack for doing their jobs, the Pakistan government needs to stop trying to control reporters and instead start protecting media freedom, added HRW.

    Earlier this month, the representatives of media organisations rejected the proposed PMDA and termed the concept as an unconstitutional and draconian law against freedom of press and expression and a step toward imposing state control to regulate all segments of media under over-centralised body.

    The major stakeholders believe that the proposed PMDA is an attempt to tighten the government’s control over the media from one platform and ignores the fact that print, electronic and social media are separate entities, each with their own defined features.