PESHAWAR, Jan 19 The NWFP government has constituted a committee to regulate the making of dramas and films being produced on compact disk (CD) locally, with an objective to protect the values of Pakhtun society.The provincial information secretary, an official told Dawn here on Monday, had been appointed as head of the committee and secretaries for culture, law, excise, industries and local government and rural development departments are its members.

The decision to form the committee was taken in the light of a summary forwarded to Chief Minister Ameer Haider Khan Hoti in the wake of the current spate of blowing up of CD shops in different parts of the province. The summary said CD shops were being targeted on the pretext that playing audiovisual material was un-Islamic, but elements of Pakhtun culture, traditions and moral code were more involved in this connection.

The Nung (honour), it observed, of the Pakhtun society was being affected and violence projected in the movies and the romance shown with this was affecting the mentality and understanding of the Pakhtun youth. “Achieving goals though the barrel of the gun is the only message that can be deciphered from these movies,” opined the summary.

A set of regulatory arrangements have been proposed in the summary that includes registration of production houses possessing minimum standards, including financial position, and framing of censorship for such productions based on local traditions of morality and propriety.

It proposed establishment of a board of censorship comprising influential people and government representatives with significant presence of women to clear such productions.

The proposed board should have a fixed tenure chairman, and the members should formulate a taxation mechanism for such production houses, keeping in view the time-length and number of productions.

To ensure adherence to copyright laws, distributors also needed to be registered and brought under the ambit of regulations. Such distributors should be regularly checked to ensure they did not black market their distribution material and were taxed accordingly, the summary maintained.

It proposed that since Afghanistan was also a big market for CD productions, the exports should be strictly regulated through distributors and taxed. Also, taxing CD shops on information provided by distributors regarding the number of CDs provided to them for sale has also been proposed.

The regulatory framework would not only ensure that the society retained its non-violent characteristics, but it would also give a clear message to general public that the ANP-led government despite being a progressive setup, had its roots in the culture, traditions and Nung of Pakhtun, the summary maintained. Moreover, the summary claimed, it would limit the influence of miscreants that they wielded on the common man by proclaiming to be champions of morality.

The committee had been assigned to examine the proposals given in the summary and come up with recommendations for its implementation, the official said.