New Delhi: Pakistani journalist Hamid Mir “literally” can’t say the name Imran Khan on Pakistani TV, and neither can anyone else. If they do, it’s edited out of the broadcast.
In an opinion piece he wrote for The Guardian earlier this week, Mir said both the Pakistan Army and former prime minister Imran Khan “are to blame for trying to gag criticism”.
In the piece, titled ‘I literally cannot say Imran Khan’s name on Pakistani TV — this madness has to end’, Mir said from the get-go that he is no “big fan” of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) chief and has “long criticised” Imran Khan for his policies and opinions. But at the same time, he denounces the censorship.
“I cannot support the censorship of Imran Khan because I opposed the same censorship of Nawaz Sharif when Khan was in power,” Mir wrote.
He fears that such restrictions are damaging the credibility of Pakistan’s media.
“I am trying to protect my integrity and that of the independent media facing censorship,” he told The Print.
The current regime may want to remove Khan from electoral politics, but it “cannot rid his name from Pakistan’s discourse,” he explained in The Guardian column. He added that the Army is not fighting against Khan but rather against the very idea of a democratic Pakistan and called for the end of this “censorship habit”.
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De-facto ban
Mir, whose prime-time show Capital Talk on Geo News is among the most-watched news programmes in Pakistan, wrote that a “de facto ban” is in place on any reference to Khan, who was ousted from power in April 2022.
According to him, this ban on any mention or picture of Khan on Pakistani TV channels or electronic media is the “result of a series of directives issued by the media regulator” — a reference to the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA), which was established through an Ordinance by the federal government in Pakistan in 2002.
“PEMRA should not take dictation from the government. It is no longer independent; it is used to twist independent media,” Mir told ThePrint over the phone Thursday.
The year 2002 was also when Pakistan witnessed an explosion of media outlets following the end of the state monopoly on broadcasting. At present, the country has an estimated 100 TV channels and more than 200 radio stations which cater to its 23 crore citizens.
Mir also said he is no longer allowed to conduct a live TV discussion. Debates are recorded and if a panellist mentions Imran Khan or his party, that part of the recording does not make it to the broadcast.
This is consistent with the assessment of Pakistani media by Reporters Without Borders (RSF). It ranked the country 150 of 180 countries in its 2023 World Press Freedom Index, “Pakistan’s media regulators are directly controlled by the government and systematically put the defence of the executive government before the public’s right to information.”
RSF also added that The Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act (PECA), which was adopted in 2016, is “used more to restrict online freedom of expression than to crack down on online crime”.
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Follow the Constitution
The ban on any reference to Imran Khan was put into place without any “written order”. Media outlets were simply told not to air the statements of those directly or indirectly involved in the 9 May violence that was preceded by Imran Khan’s arrest, he said.
When such a gag order was passed in March 2023, Imran challenged it in the Lahore High Court which then set the order aside.
Mir added that the media regulator in Pakistan is being headed by an individual who has been granted multiple extensions beyond the end of his official tenure and whose “integrity is in question”.
The gag on mentioning Khan is only a part of a larger problem that Pakistani media is facing. The disappearance of two journalists has everyone worried. For Mir, the solution is simple — implement the Constitution.
“In the Constitution of Pakistan, Article 10 has a fair trial clause wherein anyone arrested by security forces has to be produced in court within 24 hours of the arrest. The government and the judiciary are not implementing the Constitution,” he said.
He added that fellow journalists have thanked him for writing the column. “But people from both current and previous regimes are not happy,” he said.
(Edited by Theres Sudeep)