Govt asks Pemra not to allow live broadcast of hateful speeches

ISLAMABAD: The federal government on Friday advised the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (Pemra) to clamp down on broadcast of hate speeches of political leaders live.

According to a statement issued by the Pemra, the government expressed concerns over the live telecast of the hate speech of political leaders by majority of the electronic channels recently and urged the regulatory body to invoke the section 27 of the Pemra Amendment Act 2007.

Acting on the government’s advice, Pemra issued show cause notices to 14 television channels, Radio Pakistan reported.

TV channels have been directed to immediately evolve a mechanism for delaying live broadcast to avoid such embarrassing situations in the future, a Pemra spokesperson said, adding that strict action would be taken against channels who fail to comply with the directives.

The section 27 (a) of the Pemra Act “Prohibition of broadcast media or distribution service operation” reads: “The Authority shall by order in writing, giving reasons therefore, prohibit any broadcast media or distribution service operator from broadcasting or re-broadcasting or distributing any programme or advertisement if it is of the opinion that such particular programme or advertisement is against the ideology of Pakistan or is likely to create hatred among the people or is prejudicial to the maintenance of law and order or is likely to disturb public peace and tranquility or endangers national security or is pornographic, obscene or vulgar or is offensive to the commonly accepted standards of decency.”

#PEMRA issues show cause notice to TV channels over broadcast of #MQM leader Altaf Hussain speech pic.twitter.com/S4qe2w9JQM

— Shahid Abbasi (@ShahidAbbasiPak) May 1, 2015