Curbs on Pak media challenged in Supreme Court

ISLAMABAD: Petitions have been filed in the Pakistan Supreme Court and two provincial courts challenging the new sweeping curbs imposed by President Pervez Musharraf on the electronic media, terming it as a "malafide act" aimed at demolishing the institution of media.
 
Head of the Human Rights Wing of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League (N) Zafarullah Khan filed a petition in the apex court contending that in the backdrop of the judicial crisis sparked off by the suspension of the chief justice, the amendments introduced by the president were aimed at gagging the media and depriving the people of their right of freedom of speech and expression. The petitioner contended that the new amendments violate several articles of the Constitution.
 
The Ministry of Law and Justice, information secretary and Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA) have been named as respondents in the petition.
 
Musharraf had on Monday promulgated the PEMRA (Amendment) Ordinance (2007), empowering the authority to take action on its own against television channels, confiscate equipment of broadcasters and seal the premises without consulting a council of complaints.
   
The petition contended that the capricious and malafide act of the government had demolished the institution of media with the stroke of a pen.
 
The people of Pakistan were stunned by this "shock and awe" policy of the government, as the last hope of the people to seek free flow of information had been trampled down to stifle people's movement for independence of the judiciary, the petition contended.

The amendments had been made with "malice to curb civil liberties, especially the movement of freedom of media and independence of the judiciary," the petitioner maintained.
  
The ordinance, it said, had been promulgated in a "colourful exercise" of the authority when there was no need to issue the law as the National Assembly was to meet today.
 
"The freedom of press is always treated as the most essential part of a democratic system to keep a check on other organs of the government from exceeding its powers," the petition said.
   
In Lahore, Advocate M.D. Tahir filed a petition against the PEMRA Ordinance in the High Court, Dawn reported.
 
The petition prayed that amendments to the ordinance empowering PEMRA to cancel licences and confiscate equipment of television channels might be declared unconstitutional.
  
Tahir contended that the actual situation was entirely different from government's claims of according full independence to the media.
 
He said everyone should have the freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media regardless of frontiers.
 
The petitioner alleged that PEMRA was condoning vulgar dances, obscene English movies and indecent Indian films being shown on cable networks, despite being legally bound to ban
such programmes.
   
He prayed the respondents might be restrained from imposing any kind of ban on the electronic media in the future.
   
In Karachi, a petition has been filed in the Sindh High Court to challenge the validity of the new Ordinance
 
The petitioner said the president could promulgate an ordinance if the house was not in session, but in this case the assembly was about to start a session and so the ordinance was "illegal and unconstitutional and promulgated with the malicious intention of gagging the press".
 
He asked the court to declare the ordinance null and void and refer it to the National Assembly. PTI