June 04, 2007	Monday	Jamadi-ul-Awwal 18, 1428

ISLAMABAD, June 3: Pakistan Peoples Party has condemned the restrictions on the electronic media, which hinder them from broadcasting live coverage to the Chief Justice as “a blatant attack on the freedom of expression” and termed it “a shameful (act of) intolerance of dissent by a regime that is frightful of the ugly face of (the) truth.”

In a statement here on Sunday, spokesperson of the party, former Senator Farhatullah Babar said the ban on live broadcasts was “malafide and illegal” and against the provisions of the law regulating private broadcasting.

Under article 26 of the Pemra law, coercive action can be taken only on the recommendations of the Council of Complaints to which any aggrieved party may complain “against any aspect of the programmes.” The law does not permit the government to unilaterally ban live broadcasts, he said.

If the regime had any complaints against the live coverage it should have complained to the Council and waited for its recommendations, he said.

Senator Farhatullah Babar said aspersions on the military were cast not by the people but by those who had dragged it into politics and used it to subdue the state’s institutions for perpetuating themselves in power. “When the army chief and the heads of intelligence agencies dressed in military regalia try to force the CJ to resign it is they who are throwing (a) dim light on the military and no one else.”

Dictators in the past have always tried to suppress the truth behind “national security” and “anti-state and anti-nation,” he said. Even parliamentary questions about whether military officers submitted their annual declarations of assets have been rejected on the grounds of “national security,” he asserted.

“Books may be burnt but (the) truth cannot be stifled. Individuals may be sent to jails but ideas can’t be imprisoned. Negative images and ideas, if any, can be countered only through more powerful ideas and not by banning channels from showing the images.”

The prescription of “self regulation, self correction and sense of responsibility” applies more to the regime than to the media, he said.