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| Pak bans Geo talk show which covered CJ's sacking | | | KARACHI, MAR 16
Pakistan government has banned a popular television talk show run by the country's biggest media network, Geo, which gave extensive coverage of the events that followed the suspension of Supreme Court Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhary by President Pervez Musharraf.
State-controlled Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA) ordered the management of the Geo TV network last night to stop airing its flagship daily news programme "Aaj Kamran Khan Key Saath" with immediate effect, a spokesman of Geo News said today.
As per the government order, Geo News aired an apology to its viewers at 2300 hrs PST last night, the schedule time for the show hosted by Karachi-based Kamran Khan, explaining the government order that led to the banning of the show.
"As per the government order we have stopped the show and informed our viewers about the position explaining the government position," a spokesman said.
Khan, when contacted, said he was surprised that the government had taken such a desperate measure.
"I never knew that the government would act like this and lose patience so soon with free flow of information."
The government came in for scathing criticism during the last few of Khan's shows on the issue of the suspension of the Chief Justice on March nine with participants wading into the government handling of the case.
Khan said he never had any other agenda other than providing people the most accurate and objective analysis on an "important turning point" for the country.
"This programme was very much within the framework of the law and had no illegal contents," he said.
PEMRA has imposed various restrictions on all TV channels for today in the wake of the hearing of allegations against Justice Chaudhry by the Supreme Judicial Council. These restrictions are in addition to the curbs already imposed by SJC.
Meanwhile, the chief of the Mutthaida Qaumi Movement, which is a part of teh ruling coalition, has hit out at the authorities for banning the show.
"The media should be allowed to air their views and show people everything and they should not be stopped in doing their job," Altaf Hussain said.
He also made it clear that the government did not take his party into confidence while deciding to suspend the Chief Justice.
Khan along with another anchor Hamid Mir has been hosting special shows throughout the day ever since the Supreme Court Chief Justice was suspended by Musharraf on the grounds of misconduct and misuse of power.
The government had blacked out Geo TV along with two other channels for several hours on March 9, which PEMRA later attributed to technical reasons.
The ban on Khan's show came as Human Rights Watch asked the Pakistan government not to intimidate the media with curbs.
"Having made a mockery of the rule of law, the government is trying to intimidate the media and others in order to prevent condemnation of its behaviour," Ali Dayan Hasan, South Asia researcher at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement.
"Musharraf's functionaries must end their bullying of civil society now," he said.
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