Pakistan's private ARY news channel taken off air for airing Imran Khan's speech

Hours after Pakistans media regulator banned broadcasts of ousted prime minister Imran Khans speeches, the private ARY TV news channel was taken off air on Monday for airing his address a day earlier.

The Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA) Sunday night banned satellite television channels from broadcasting live and recorded speeches of the 70-year-old former cricketer-turned-politician after Islamabad police failed to arrest him.

ARY is not currently available and instead a message is benign shown on it about ban by the regulator.

The ARY channel is considered sympathetic towards Khan and action had been taken against the broadcaster in the past as well.

“It has been observed that Mr Imran Khan, Chairman Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, in his speeches/statements is continuously…levelling baseless allegations and spreading hate speech through his provocative statements against state institutions and officers which is prejudicial to the maintenance of law and order and is likely to disturb public peace and tranquillity, read an order by Pemra.

It said airing of hateful, slanderous and unwarranted statements against state institutions is in sheer violation of Article 19 of the Constitution and a judgment of the Supreme Court.

It has been observed that such content was telecasted by TV channels without effective utilisation of time-delay mechanism in violation of provisions of PEMRA laws as well as judgments of the apex courts, the regulator added.

“Therefore, the competent authority i.e. Chairman PEMRA…hereby prohibits broadcast/rebroadcast of speech(s)/press talks (recorded or live) of Mr Imran Khan on all satellite TV channels with immediate effect, read the PEMRA order.

It also directed all satellite TV channels to ensure that impartial editorial boards be constituted, as required under Clause 17 of Electronic Media (Programmes and Advertisement) Code of Conduct 2015, to ensure their platforms are not used for airing contemptuous remarks or hateful or prejudicial statement against state institutions or in the interest of public law and order.

Pemra warned the TV channels that their license would be suspended in case of non-compliance.

It is not for the first time that PEMRA took action against Khan. It had prohibited the broadcast and re-broadcast of speeches and press conferences of the

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by The Federal staff and is auto-published from a syndicated feed.)