Pakistan Imposes Curbs on TV Media, Hampering Election Coverage

Feb. 18 (Bloomberg) — Pakistan's private broadcasters are
barred from reporting independently on the country's
parliamentary elections today after the government imposed curbs
on coverage, amid rigging allegations by opposition parties.

“We are being told to report what the government wants us
to report,'' Mazhar Abbas, the secretary of the Pakistan Federal
Union of Journalists, said in a phone interview. “We have never
ever experienced such harsh restrictions.''

Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority, the
government's regulator, yesterday prohibited television stations
from reporting progressive results and interviewing candidates
until the end of polling at 5 p.m. local time. Channels were also
barred from live coverage of political parties, it said in a
statement from Malik Mushtaq, chairman of the regulator.

The new rules come after the government ordered all
Pakistani news channels off air when President Pervez Musharraf
imposed emergency rule on Nov. 3 for six weeks. Today's election
is the first nationwide vote since competing private channels
were allowed to start broadcasting, ending the government's
monopoly over broadcast news.

“It is controlled freedom of the press,'' said Abbas. While
television channels violating the new rules risk going off air,
some broadcasters will ignore the orders, he said.

Pakistan's main private television channels including AAJ,
GEO and Aryone World are aired on cable TV or via satellite,
limiting their viewership in a country of 160 million people.
State-run Pakistan Television is the only terrestrial broadcaster
in Pakistan.

The regulator's orders conform with Election Commission
rules that campaigning ended at midnight on Feb. 16, Muhammad
Saleem, a spokesman for the regulator, said in a phone interview.

Off Air

After emergency rule was imposed, the television channels
were gradually allowed back on cable TV after they signed the
government's code of conduct that barred them from criticizing
the president, the army and the judiciary or face the risk of
penalties and cancellation of their licenses.

Opposition parties have said that media curbs were part of
the government's plan to rig the elections in favor of pro-
Musharraf Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid-i-Azam party, a charge
denied by Musharraf's office.

The Paris-based Reporters Sans Frontieres, or Reporters
without borders, said state-run television's coverage of the
election campaign was “heavily biased'' in favor of pro-
Musharraf parties.

“We urge international observers to include the
television's lack of fairness in their conclusions of Pakistan's
electoral process,'' it said in a Feb. 14 report.

The state-run TV in its four main political programs from
Feb. 3 to Feb. 12 gave more than two-thirds of their time to news
about Musharraf, the caretaker government, or the former ruling
party Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid-i-Azam, which is backed by
president, the report said.

–By Khalid Qayum and James Rupert

To contact the reporters on this story:
Khalid Qayum in Islamabad at

kqayum@bloomberg.net
;
James Rupert in Lahore at

jrupert3@bloomberg.net

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