KARACHI, Nov 17: The All Pakistan Newspapers Society and the Council of Pakistan Newspaper Editors have described the shutdown of the Geo and ARY groups’ news channels as a “serious blow to any hopes for an improvement in the situation” evolving in the wake of curbs on freedom of expression and freedom of the press.

In a joint statement on Saturday, Hameed Haroon, the President of APNS, and CPNE chief Faseih Iqbal called for an immediate restoration of all television news channels. “This alone will allow an immediate return to the process of constructive dialogue between the government and civil society for which, a free press and a free electronic media are arbitrators or referees”.

The statement recalled that President Pervez Musharraf had assured the nation in his address on Nov 3 — the day emergency rule was imposed — that the governance of the country would conform “as nearly as possible” to the Constitution. But, the statement went on to say, the APNS and CPNE “have noted with alarm the rapidly deteriorating environment of freedom of expression and freedom of press as the 15th day of the emergency draws to a close”.

The APNS and CPNE chiefs said as freedom of the print media and the electronic media were inseparable, it was high time that the government and the press heard each other’s grievances.

If the government restored the two TV channels, they added, the APNS, CPNE and the Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists were ready to convene a “joint assembly of the press in which the government’s grievances against the media and vice versa can be dealt with speedily”.

Mr Hameed Haroon and Mr Faseih Iqbal called upon President Musharraf to reconsider “before it is too late” the recent decisions regarding restrictions on the media because a “deteriorating climate for freedom of expression and freedom of association would ultimately affect the people’s freedom of choice —which the general election attempts to represent”.

“In any democracy leading towards elections, a constructive dialogue between the government and the fourth estate is essential. Such a dialogue cannot be meaningfully considered when electronic channels are gagged and friendly neighbouring countries are prevailed upon to withdraw satellite transmission facilities in a way that the situation gravitates towards creating regional misunderstanding in place of regional interchange.”

Mr Hameed Haroon and Mr Faseih Iqbal urged journalists, lawyers and political activists, “either at the barricades or incarcerated in prisons, to join together in a national reconciliation effort which can only begin with the immediate restoration of television channels and prompt withdrawal of black amendments in the Press, Newspapers, News Agencies and Book Registration Ordinance, 2002, and the Pemra Ordinance, 2003”.