New media curbs challenged in Supreme Court

Islamabad, Jun 6: A new presidential decree imposing sweeping curbs on the electronic media in Pakistan has been challenged in the Supreme Court, reports said.

''The petition requested the court to declare the ordinance, which President Pervez Musharraf promulgated on Monday, against the fundamental rights guaranteed in the Constitution,'' Dawn newspaper reported today.

The new ordinance came after Musharraf accused the electronic media of being part of an ongoing campaign to malign judiciary and armed forces in the wake of his sacking of Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry.

Similar petitions challenging the ordinance have also been filed in the Lahore High Court and Sindh High Court.

The ordinance empowered the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA) to take action on its own against television channels, confiscate equipment of broadcasters and seal the premises.

Filed by the head of the Human Rights Wing of the Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz), Barrister Zafarullah Khan, the petition pleaded that the capricious and mala fide 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 said.

The amendments had been made with malice to curb civil liberties, especially the movement of freedom of media and independence of the judiciary, it said.

The federal government, through the law secretary and information secretary, and Pemra, through its chairman, were made respondents in the petition.

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 on June 6.

''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.

UNI