How One Channel Could Shake Up Pakistan's Media Scene

We don't usually write about entertainment channels of the sitcom / soaps / serials variety (as opposed to entertainment channels of the news / current affairs variety) but there's a new channel airing across Pakistan for about the last two months causing all sorts of waves that is interesting to us for a number of reasons.

 Urdu1's advertising blitz can be seen in magazines and on billboards

For one, Urdu1, as the channel is named, seems to have hooked a substantial number of viewers, which seems to be giving its big-name rivals in the television entertainment business all sorts of palpitations. No doubt a major part of the reason for its sudden popularity is the fact that it is broadcasting some of the most popular Indian soaps, whose ratings on the illegally (but widely) broadcast Indian entertainment channels such as Star Plus and Colors, put to shame ratings of all other Pakistani channels. It is technically able to do this because it is actually not a Pakistani channel (which are subject to far more restrictions regarding Indian content) but a 'foreign channel', based out of Dubai and only having 'landing rights' in Pakistan.

But it is also benefiting from the fact that it still broadcasts most of its programming without the massive commercial breaks that have become the characteristic of Pakistani entertainment channels and which have become the bane of viewers. Unlike Pakistani entertainment channels which offer up their programming in blocks of, often, seven minutes or less, and where an hour of programming can include 22 minutes or more of commercials (also violative of the terms of their licenses, which stipulate no more than three minutes of advertising after every 15 minutes of programming - this stipulation has been challenged by the Pakistan Broadcasters Association in the Sindh High Court where the case is pending), Urdu1 so far has been getting by with running ads mostly at the beginning and end of their content. Viewers, fed up with the extended and excessive commercial breaks on Pakistani channels, seem to have given their approval.

By far the most fascinating part of the programming on this new channel from a sociological point of view, however, is the inclusion of - and unexpected popularity of - some of its dubbed offerings. Urdu1 is also offering Latin American and Turkish soaps which, despite the fact that they contain non-desi actors whose voices have obviously been dubbed into Urdu, seem to have found wide acceptance among the usual female population that comprises the bulk of the viewers of such programming. So far, Pakistani channels have rarely ventured into the dubbing territory (although Geo Entertainment has shown a couple of dubbed films in the past) because it was generally believed that audiences did not like watching such dubs and could not identify with non-desi actors and that the viewership could not justify the costs of dubbing. It would be interesting to see when rival channels also begin to add similar programming. And we can bet it won't be long.

 'Forbidden Love': Turkish soap seems to be doing well with viewers

But Urdu1 is also making waves for other reasons. A conglomerate of its rivals, including Hum TV, Geo Entertainment, ARY Digital and Express Entertainment have filed a case in the Lahore High Court against the granting of 'landing rights' to the new channel (which basically allow it to be distributed legally within Pakistan), which was launched in Pakistan only in the second week of June. They have challenged the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA) to justify the grant of the license, which they claim is against PEMRA's own criteria for such licenses.

For one, these rivals argue that any foreign satellite channel must have been operative for at least three years before it can be considered for a 'landing rights' license , and that Urdu1 did not fulfill this criteria, having been launched (even by its own admission) "in the Middle East" only in June 2010. They also claim that foreign channels are, allegedly, not allowed to have more than 10-15% of their programming in Pakistani languages under PEMRA rules and thus Urdu1 falls afoul of this criteria as well. Urdu1's rivals may be technically right (we tried but could not locate these stipulations on the PEMRA site) but it should be fairly obvious from this petition that the big Pakistani entertainment channels are very apprehensive of what Urdu1's popularity could mean for their revenues. And let's be clear about one thing: their loud cries about 'foreign cultural content' and 'subversion of Pakistani culture' are only smokescreens for the real issue of revenue and profits.

There are a few points to consider here. A) I am no fan of the mind-numbing histrionics of Indian soaps, but is the "trade protection" being sought by Pakistani channels against Indian television content legitimate, especially when one considers that all of these same channels vie to run - and go out of their way to promote - Indian content such as awards shows and films when they can? B) Is Indian content the only issue? It was considered the main issue because of the supposed easy identification of Pakistani viewers with Indian storylines and actors, and the reason that nobody bothered that much about Western content, assuming it catered only to a small niche of viewers. How will that point-of-view fare with the popularity of dubbed non-Indian content as shown by Urdu1? To take the point further, is isolationism something to aspire towards? C) One can make legitimate arguments about the need for smaller trade / production entities to have benefits that level the playing field somewhat against larger entities that have the advantage of scale. But does that argument really hold for 'cultural products' in an increasingly globalized world where technology makes the cultural products of other nations easily accessible? After all, the 'protection' offered to the Pakistani film industry for over 40 years did not really help it to survive or become better did it? D) There is a fundamental issue at stake also about who benefits from such protection: does it actually benefit people it claims to serve or just a few corporates such as television channels, some big local production companies and their owners and investors? After all, all viewership surveys in Pakistan attest to the continuing popularity of Indian soaps despite their official prohibition and despite the rantings of the moral brigade. If viewers insist on watching shoddy melodramas and continue to find ways to do it, is it the job of government to deny them legitimate avenues to do so?

Finally, there is another significant aspect to Urdu1 which has piqued our interest. Its Pakistan license holder is a company called Horizon Media (Pvt) Ltd. which is fairly untraceable on the web. For a channel that supposedly launched "in the Middle East" (out of Dubai) in 2010, Urdu1 also has no website that we can locate. Its CEO is a man called Faraz Ansari, who used to be the former General Manager of Ten Sports and apparently worked for other media companies earlier as well.

However, we have learnt from very reliable sources that the real people behind the channel are three "heavyweight" legislators of the ruling Pakistan Peoples Party. In fact, we have been able to identify one of them: Ms Shazia Marri, now elected as a member of the National Assembly and former/ current minister for Information and Electric Power in Sindh province. Another may be current Sindh minorities minister Dr Mohan Lal, whose brother Mr Jai Prakash, a Shikarpur-based trader, is alleged to be the main financier of the venture.

 Shazia Marri: new media mogul?

What makes the whole venture more curious is that, according to our sources, Ms Marri has also been in long-running talks to buy an FM channel called Josh 99FM which operates out of Karachi, Lahore and Hyderabad and is "affiliated" with three other unnamed FM stations, claiming a total "potential" listenership of over 60 million people. Josh FM99's Chief Executive is Mr Sarmad Palijo, the younger brother of the sitting Sindh Culture and Tourism Minister Ms Sassui Palijo. Adding to the intrigue is the fact that those in the know claim the purchase negotiations have dragged on because of the involvement of Ms Faryal Talpur, another sitting PPP MNA and the sister of President Asif Zardari. Our sources claim they do not know what Ms Talpur's stakes are in the matter but that on more than one occasion, she intervened once the price had been tentatively agreed, to ask the parties to reconsider the price. According to our sources, one intervention was to urge a lowering of the price, another was to raise it, which may indicate that Ms Talpur had been requested to intervene by both sides at various times.

Is there a new media empire in the offing?

The Revolt Against Mr Jeem

So, remember that we tweeted about the return of Mr Jeem (Jeem for Jaahil) Online, Aamir Liaquat, to Geo all the way back on June 20? We had also tweeted that our sources were telling us that the return had been pushed through on the insistence of CEO Mir Shakilur Rahman's mother, the family's matriarch to whom Mr Jeem had gone abegging, and whose diktat could simply not be refused by anyone in Geo. Not only was the disgraced televangelist brought back and offered his own show (for which Geo has been running teasers and quarter-page advertisements proclaiming 'Someone is Coming'), he was ushered into the position of Vice President of the entire Geo TV Network, Group Executive Director and Editor Religious Affairs.

The teaser print ad for the return of Aamir Liaquat on Geo

Well, it seems a full blown revolt has now erupted within Geo's editorial management over this. Among the people said to be extremely unhappy with this turn of events are Managing Director Geo News Azhar Abbas, Director Content Development Muaaz Ghamdi and star anchors such as Sana Bucha (Lekin), Najam Sethi (Aapas Ki Baat) and Iftikhar Ahmed (Jawaabdeyh). Many others have also signed an internal petition being circulated against Mr Jeem's reappointment.

While it is not clear if anyone else has offered their resignations, Sana Bucha refused to conduct her programme on Friday and Saturday, leading to Meray Mutabiq's  Maria Memon being drafted in as a stop-gap arrangement, while the official explanation given was that Ms Bucha was busy in "personal engagements." Our sources tell us that Ms Bucha has indeed tendered her resignation at the return of the charlatan preacher and that the resignation has now been accepted. According to our sources, she had been explicitly promised that, if Mr Jeem were ever to return to Geo, she would be free to refuse to continue. Some sources claim she even had it written into her contract though we cannot verify this. If that is indeed true, that is forward-thinking the likes of which we have not heard of before in the Pakistani media. It remains to be seen if any of the others at Geo take a stand over this or whether Ms Bucha will become the revolt's sole sacrifice.

 Sana Bucha has resigned over Aamir Liaquat's reinduction

There are also some reports that she is already in talks with Dunya to take over the slot left vacant by the sacking of Mubasher Lucman over the Malik Riaz interview fiasco, who himself has now been picked up by ARY. If these reports are correct, it would be interesting to see Ms Bucha sharing channel space with Meher Bokhari, especially recalling that they are not on the best of terms to begin with. Suffice it to say, however, it seems no scandal is big enough - recall Aamir Liaquat's vitriolic and widely condemned religious zealotry and the expose of his personal hypocrisy, Lucman's and Bokhari's flouting of all professional ethics etc. - to make the media actually take stock of its blatant shortcomings and prevent it from hiring the same professionally disgraced people.

What is also quite clear is that Mr Jeem's return just before the advent of Ramzan has as much to do with an economic bottom line as pressure from the Rehman family matriarch. When he left Geo in 2010 for ARY, Geo attempted to fill his ubiquitous Ramzan programming with a slew of celebrity hosts (such as Junaid Jamshed and Reema) but ended up making far less money than they used to in previous 'holy months' when he fronted the programming.

And that's what the real 'Geo Asool' is all about. Money.

Yes, Television Was Sometimes Awful But Was Social Media Any Better?

Almost two years ago, I wrote this piece and this piece about reporting on the Air Blue aircraft crash in Islamabad. The tragic crash of Bhoja Air flight from Karachi to Islamabad yesterday and its attendant coverage has compelled me to sit at my keyboard yet again. But whereas my initial disgust with some of the reporting on television was the initial motivation for writing a few words, the subsequent speculation and shoot-everything-in-sight diatribes on social media deserve an equal evaluation.

Bhoja Air crash (Photos via Dawn)

More on the latter later in the post, however. First, let's look at where television coverage went right and where wrong (contrary to the outrage being expressed on social media, all of it was not dire). Generally, most channels did NOT show bodies or limbs. I flipped through most of the major channels during the initial coverage, once reporters and cameramen had reached the site of the crash, and none of them were deliberately showing gore. I have heard that Samaa breached this agreed upon rule during its coverage (I did not personally see it) and, if so, viewers should definitely haul them up for it. Generally, however, good sense dictated the on-site footage, with some minor slip-ups that occurred because of the live nature of the coverage but which were corrected immediately.

Most channels did go over the top in the intrusive way they covered the grieving families and friends of those who had lost their lives in the crash, with one channel's reporter even shoving a mike in the face of a wailing relative and most running footage of distraught people in a loop. This kind of insensitive and senseless reportage (what exactly is a grieving relative going to say that will add to the sum of our knowledge?) needs to be checked and the privacy and dignity of those affected by a tragic event needs to be respected by the media. Ditto for the silly and offensive animations that we have objected to earlier as well that are based on pure speculation (one had a plane nose-diving while ARY even ran a clip from a Hollywood film!)  and only serve to mislead viewers and perhaps cause agony for those affected.

However, those on social media who were of the opinion that there should be absolutely no coverage of those affected and that no such intrusion occurs anywhere else in the world are living in some sort of make-believe world. I'm sorry but, to a certain extent, this is the nature of the medium that television is, it gravitates towards dramatic visuals and I have personally seen Western reporters be equally insensitive and intrusive as well as plenty of footage on Western channels that covers grieving relatives. Instead of talking about having channels shut down over their coverage (on what basis one is still not quite sure) or hauled up and fined, it would be far more productive to build consensus on where the ethical line actually is. A good point to start, as someone pointed out, is for channels and reporters to put themselves in the shoes of those grieving. If one of their own family members had suffered such a tragedy, would they want their and their family's grief to be broadcast in close-up and in a loop to the whole world? Would they want to be asked what they are feeling? Pressure should be built on channel heads and news editors to sit down together - as they did in the case of coverage of people killed - and work out a framework of guidelines on how grief is to be shown, also keeping in mind that overly dramatic scenes of grief are not healthy viewing particularly for children who sometimes can catch them inadvertently.

Where most channels really slipped up, however, in my opinion, was, as in the case of the Air Blue crash, in their knowledge of basic scientific principles and facts and in their propensity to conjecture for no worthwhile reason or on the basis of any real facts. Thus two channels, including Dunya, initially kept insisting that the plane was a Russian aircraft (ostensibly implying poor quality construction) even while others had already pointed that it was an American Boeing. One channel, Express, initially announced that a military helicopter had gone down with soldiers on board (before reversing their 'breaking news') and ARY ran a lengthy clip of a local on site who claimed that the crash was probably caused by aerial firing 'as he had always feared and filed a court petition about'. Other 'eye-witnesses' variously claimed the plane had split up in the air or had been struck by lightning or that its engine was on fire. In most cases, the problem with unsubstantiated stories finding their way on to television news has to do with the 'breaking news' disease, the desire to be the first with the 'news' as part of ratings wars. But news editors should also know by now that 'eye-witness' accounts in such cases are notoriously contradictory and should at least be moderated by an editorial narrative. Wild claims such as that of aerial firing by the conjecturing 'eye-witness' only add to viewers' confusion and really should not be part of the narrative in the first place. I suppose when anchors have seemingly never even heard the term 'cloudburst', they latch on to whatever is easiest for them to grasp, whether it is relevant or not.

Incidentally, as pointed out by a journalist who emailed us, every channel also got one fact completely wrong: that this was Bhoja Air's 'inaugural' flight from Karachi to Islamabad. He pointed out that a friend of his had flown Bhoja on the same route three days earlier. However this wrong bit of information was apparently traced to Bhoja Air's own website. I have no idea why Bhoja would claim this was an inaugural flight when it was not. One suggestion was that, perhaps this was the first afternoon flight on the route while the earlier flights were morning flights. Even in that case, the term 'inaugural' is a bit of an exaggeration.

Of course the default position of all channels is to try and find scapegoats. Everyone knew that the weather had suddenly taken a turn for the worst and freak acts of nature have in the past brought down planes in other places in the world - in fact, pilots who landed in Islamabad just a few minutes earlier confirmed that the weather had suddenly become very dangerous - yet most channels chose to attack the age of the aircraft, the skill of the pilot, the company's chequered history (it ceased operations in 2001 and only started up again a month and a half ago), Civil Aviation Authority's procedures and bizarrely even the government (in the case of Samaa). Geo's anchor, meanwhile, actually asked an astonished aviation expert if, 'had the pilot been more skilled, he could have brought the plane down low enough in the air for the passengers to jump out'. Really Junaid? Have you never travelled in a plane??!

The point is not that one or more of these factors could not have played a part in the tragedy. But that they were discussed ignoring the fact that even with the best and youngest of aircraft, the most skillful of pilots and the best of professional environments, accidents can and do happen with freak forces of nature. What purpose exactly is served, aside from filling up airtime space, from making conjectures whose actual answers will not be known until a proper inquiry is held? Or is creating pointless agitation among the public at large the job of news media? A debilitating lightning strike or devastating wind shear (as is now being discussed) could have solely been responsible without any of the factors being discussed coming into play.

Which brings me to the speculation that swamped Twitter and Facebook right after the crash. Truth be told, it was no better than the conjecture of the television anchors. One common refrain was the age of the aircraft that went down (more than 27 years according to this report in Dawn quoting AviationSafety.net), as if no old planes ever fly anywhere else in the world. In fact, as this answer points out, the average age of DC-9 aircraft operated by the US carrier NorthWest Airlines in 2005 was 34 years old! And that theoretically, depending on regular checks and maintenance, planes can continue to fly forever. (Here's some more info on life spans of aircraft in case you're interested.) In fact, the main reason fleets are replaced is because newer aircraft are more fuel efficient (but fleet replacement, as was blithely being suggested by certain people, obviously requires a lot of investment capital). Once again, the point is not that the age of the aircraft could definitely not have played a part in the tragedy. Only that picking on this one factor without any proof of it being a factor is as absurd as anything the channels were doing.

The other great target of social media activists seemed to be, as is always the case, Geo. I am hardly a defender of Geo's excesses, but as someone who watched most main channels' coverage of the incident, I can tell you that Geo was far more restrained than some of the others. By far the worst in terms of absolute absurdity were Express and ARY, mainly because there seemed to be no sensible editorial control and a surfeit of banal posturing from their reporters. As an example, in one segment on Express, the reporter held up a burnt out fire extinguisher because the anchor goaded him to get in amongst the debris and then spouted this gem: 'This cylinder is a fire extinguisher, used to extinguish fires, but when the plane caught fire, even this was no use.' He then went on to pick up another piece of debris, adding 'This used to be a part of the plane but after its destruction, it is no longer a part of the plane.'

So please, hold Geo's feet to the fire by all means, but let's not lose sight of the wood for the trees.

Siachen Tragedy: Prioritizing the News

This is a post about the heart-rending tragedy that struck on the Siachen Glacier early Saturday morning, which has buried - and in all likely probability killed - at least 135 people in one of the biggest avalanches ever to strike Pakistan. The latest estimates say all 124 soldiers stationed at the battalion headquarters in the Gayari sector and some 11-14 civilian support staff are now buried somewhere underneath the avalanche of snow, stone and dirt, said to be over-a-kilometre-wide and up to 80 feet deep.

But this post is not about the futility of maintaining armed forces in such inhospitable terrain (where more soldiers have died from the natural conditions than actual fighting), nor about the ridiculous expenditure this quarter-of-a-century-long deployment imposes on both Pakistan and India whose people still die from hunger, malnutrition, lack of access to clean water and easily treatable diseases. It could well be, but that's become almost a cliche and enough commentators will be focusing on just that. No, I want to focus on the shocking way this tragedy was covered by Pakistan's electronic media.

The following are the headlines from the 9pm bulletin on Geo News from Saturday 7th April 2012. Notice something?




As you can see, the news item about more than 100 Pakistanis having possibly perished was tucked away in fourth priority, behind the usual war of words between the PPP and the PMLN, the preps in India for President Zardari's 'private' visit to the Ajmer shrine and COAS Gen Kayani's banal statement about not letting counter-insurgency operations detract from 'normal' war planning. Sandwiched between these stories and other  news items about a motorbike stunt show, a transvestite wedding and 'Arab' dance on Karachi's food street, you could be almost forgiven for thinking the death of so many citizens of Pakistan was no big deal.

Keep in mind that the avalanche took place at 6 am on Saturday morning. I first saw the news in the 2 pm bulletin (it could have appeared earlier, I am not sure). And I remember feeling incredulous that even then the story was dealt with in such cavalier fashion. The entire day, it never received any higher priority than the third, fourth or fifth top story. It was only at 10.30 pm, when the armed forces' Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) department issued a statement detailing the specifics of the catastrophe that, suddenly, the news was turned into 'Breaking News' and finally entered the top slot of news bulletins.

Now, in any country in the world, such a natural disaster, especially one in which over 100 of its citizens had perished or even been trapped, would have or should have made the top story. Forget issues of nationalism, this would be a top story for any news media anywhere in the world. For a media that thrives on human interest stories, the idea that such a huge number of people were buried alive under a wall of snow inherently calls out for top billing. The number of lives directly touched by this tragedy - from family, relations, friends - in itself numbers in the tens of thousands. All the next day's papers, quite rightly, gave the story the main headline.

So what happened with Pakistan's television channels? (Although I have chosen to highlight Geo News here as the largest, by far, of the private media channels, I am told the other channels were similar in their handling of the story.) The only two possibilities are that either the news editors are completely incompetent in their judgement of news-worthiness, or that it was, more likely, pressure from the army that forced them to play down the story the whole day. And I will submit that in the case of the latter, the news editors and their channel's owners have displayed that they are equally incompetent in their judgement.

It is important to keep in mind a couple of things. One, that it was not that the story had not reached the news channels because of the remote location; they were aware of the parameters of the disaster at least by 2pm and were running the story, just not in the spot it deserved. Two, that it is highly, highly improbable that channels that run even the most mundane localized political and crime stories ad nauseam in their bulletins suddenly discovered the value of not 'sensationalizing' such a genuinely 'big' story. Even the argument that time was needed to inform the families of the potential victims does not hold any weight, since anyone whose loved one was deployed at Siachen would already have become aware of the disaster from the news that was running through the day. The only thing the down-playing of the news might have achieved is their resentment that their loved ones' lives were not worth more serious concern.

If channel heads and news editors cannot turn down the silly and unwarranted pressure of the army (if indeed it was this that decided the news priority and not simple incompetence) to play down what is, for any half-wit journalist, a blatantly obvious major story, if they really cannot stand up for their own news sense on such a non-controversial matter, they really should stop tooting the horn about themselves as the "independent media."

Pathetic Express

I don't watch Kamran Shahid's show. I really don't. That's why I had to be told by another Pyala that I should probably see what happened on his show on Express TV yesterday. Having now seen the show in its entirety, I can safely say that my initial position was well-founded.

Here was a show on Balochistan, whose dire situation is, thankfully, finally receiving some space in the media that has long shut its eyes hoping uncomfortable truths would all just go away. Recently there have been a few eloquent and blood-curdling pieces in the print media as well as no-nonsense coverage on some television channels. Some of the best coverage in the mainstream print media has been in Dawn: Here is veteran journalist I. A. Rehman today on "Balochistan's Agony", here is writer Mohammed Hanif's heart-rending front-page piece on February 11 on "The Baloch Who Is Not Missing", and here is Dawn's strong editorial on the same subject a day after. Some of the best programmes on Balochistan have been on the channel everyone loves to hate, Geo. Geo's Lekin, hosted by Sana Bucha, has raised difficult questions about Balochistan a number of times and a recent edition of Aapas Ki Baat provided a very balanced primer on the issues via the programme's in-house analyst Najam Sethi. Even Hamid Mir on Capital Talk has done a series of hard-hitting and much needed programmes on the subject.

Let's just say Kamran Shahid's Frontline will never make that list of thought-provoking programmes.

I watched the first half of the show uncomfortably, not because of the issues that were being discussed, but because of the host's obvious duggapan - I'm sorry but there is no other word that comes to mind for him. He has a knack of making even valid questions seem like cluelessly crude rhetoric. But while discussing a situation as much of a political tinderbox as Balochistan has become, possibly the last thing an anchor sitting in the Punjab should be doing is making incendiary statements with little sense of how they could and would be perceived. In any case, while it was a tense viewing experience things did not completely deteriorate, thanks mainly to the patience of both former Chief Minister Akhtar Mengal and the PPP's Lashkari Raisani, who answered fairly provocative questions without erupting.

And then all hell broke loose. Kamran Shahid took Jamhoori Watan Party head and son of slain Baloch leader Akbar Bugti, Talal Bugti, on line and this is what followed with All Pakistan Muslim League representative Barrister Saif:




Now, there are times when really one is at a complete loss for words. What can I really say here that is not totally, utterly and absolutely self-evident?

Yes, Talal Bugti's regurgitation of his old rhetoric calling for the vigilante killing of General Musharraf (which we have criticised before here) was uncalled for, but Barrister Saif's violent and blatantly vulgar response was in this case even more reprehensible and condemnable. If there is a bigger villain, however, it is Kamran Shahid, the producers of his crappy show and the management of Express TV who allowed this exchange to go on air. Note how all of them were content to let this utter hogwash continue for a full two and a half minutes after it became clear that things were getting out of hand. Why? Simply because it is now considered a good ratings booster to have such conflagarations on television. And if people cross the line, all the better. In fact, Express has had a similar experience before with Talal Bugti which is obviously why they decided to pit him once again against a Musharraf supporter.

It's about time that PEMRA woke up and put an end to this sorry trend that almost makes you yearn for the sobriety of the old Pakistan Television. Pathetic. An uttterly pathetic excuse for a 'talk show'. And even more pathetic that such ratings chicanery should be played out on a topic as important as Balochistan.

Love, Pakistani style

It's been a busy day for lovers around the world. In Malaysia, authorities arrested 80 umarried Muslims from budget hotels and parks. The catch would no doubt have tripled if they'd dared to go upmarket. In Pakistan, the transgendered community distributed flowers and luddoos in a hospital. And in Uzbekistan, the state picked bromance over romance and cancelled an annual Valentine's Day concert and aggressively promoted the birthday of the Mughal Emperor Babur instead.

But you know the world really is going to hell in a handbasket (with a little red bow and some flowers) when you turn on the TV to cleanse your palate of the faux-sentimentality of February 14th with that most bitter of things, local politics, and find Hamid Mir on Geo's Capital Talk wearing a red shirt and talking about how what Pakistan needs now is love, sweet love. If that isn't surreal enough for you, consider the intro, in which some of our elected respresentatives unite to wish us Happy Valentine's Day because...

"Dekhain mohabbatain bantnay kay liye kisi din ki zaroorat nahin hoti hai lekin jo mauqa milay uss ko avail karna chaahiye."





The disparate elements which combined to make this possibly the strangest Capital Talk ever - the juxtaposition of deaths in Turbat with love elsewhere, Hamid Mir's unlikely Cupid, Tehrik-e-Insaf's Abrar-ul-Haq's mealy-mouthed hypocrisy (referencing his leader Imran Khan's 'liberal fascists' line yet again), PMLN's Pervez Rashid's mullah-teasing, PPP's sedate Nayyar Bokhari and Sunni Ittehad Council's (SIC's) Sahibzada Fazal-e-Karim's apoplectic response to any love which dares speak its name - continue throughout the rest of the episode.

Highlights include nuggets about how one must love with 'limitations' (Abrar got famous because of rather naughty love songs but is now humming a different tune). The SIC man speaks more on how "aik padri ki yaad main yeh din manana ghair sharaii, ghair Islami hai" [it's unIslamic to celebrate this day in the name of a priest] and how celebrating the day is equivalent to flouting the Two Nation Theory. There is also a random clip from the recent Difa-e-Pakistan rally in Karachi in which a Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD) member threatens that "media ka qabiristan issi maidan ko bana diya jaye ga" if presswalas don't give enough coverage to the "mohibban-e-watan" [this ground will be made into a graveyard for the media if it doesn't provide enough coverage to the patriots], after which Hamid Mir reads aloud an apology letter from the spokesman of that (banned) outfit and then deadpans that he - and presumably all the presswalas he speaks for - accepts the "peghaam-i-mohabbat" [message of love] they have sent on Valentine's Day.

In between, the Sahibzada (whose organization was recently outed as the recipient of some $36,000 in US funding) declares that you know there is no rule of law in a society when na-mehram boys and girls are able to send each other roses. And once every five minutes somebody or the other goes back to the latest murders in Balochistan, thus giving Mir the opportunity to again point out that what the rest of Pakistan needs to do is give it more flowers.

No, Mir sahib, we need to stop sending them funeral wreaths.

Geo Does Women Empowerment, Kinda

You know how, sometimes, you want to write a post on something big and important but then along comes something trivial but so funny that it's hard to pass up? Well, that's what I feel right now.

See the following ad featured on the back page of The News today, featuring a line up of Geo TV's drama serials for the week:

Geo TV ad in The News today

Read the descriptions of the storylines. In the interest of easy reading, I am reproducing them verbatim below (my favourite has to be #4):

1. Is woman made to sacrifice herself on man's desire?
2. Is a woman so useless that she can be kept and left on one's own wish?
3. Does a widow have the right to remarry?
4. Helpless woman with limited options.
5. Is it really hard to believe a woman?
6. Is a woman born only to be used?
7. Is woman so weak that any man can shake her existence?

What a rollicking week of entertainment to look forward to. Or could one say that the success of the relentlessly misery-focused Bol has gone to Geo's head?

Presenting... the Real Spirit of Aamir Liaquat

Without further ado...



[Update 1: The above video may not play because it has been pulled from Youtube by Geo. In that case you can watch the video here or try the following embed:




Update 2: I fully expect the above videos to be taken down eventually. Please check the comments section for new links that readers may post for the video in case you cannot view them from the given links. If you do come across new working links that are not already known, please do share them with others in the comments section.]

I don't subscribe at all to the sectarian twist this video takes towards the end, which is obviously motivated by other concerns. But the first half should be enough to get an idea of the reality of this televangelist. I'd love to see the face of the numerous people taken in by his faux piety and "gentleness" right about now. Keep in mind that this man is currently the Managing Director of ARY's religion channel QTV.

What is it they say? Har Cheez Meezan Mein Achhi Lagti Hai!


Update 3: Of course, Aamir Liaquat has taken the expected route and claimed that the video is a doctored one, with sophisticated editing and dubbing in of a fake voice used to conspire against him (what other possible recourse could a bald-faced hypocrite painted into a corner have?). Let's just say nobody - especially those with any sense of the technicalities of video editing - are buying it. He has blamed, without naming his former employers, Geo, for releasing the video, ostensibly because his Ramzan programmes on the ARY Network are (according to him) beating Geo's ratings (it's all about the ratings, isn't it?). Some others too have questioned how this video was leaked, comprising as it does, material that only Geo could have been privy to. We don't know how the video material made its way out of Geo (such things are usually traceable to editors or other working in an organization who have access to the footage and who can make copies on the sly) but the very fact that Geo has been pulling out all stops to have the video taken down from various sites points to the fact that the video is very much genuine. The reasons for Geo to want to suppress the video are simple: it reflects rather poorly on their programming and their brand as well, even though Aamir Liaquat may no longer be working for them. What it reveals is the utter hypocrisy of not just Mr Jaahil Online himself but also of those in direct charge of the 'religious' programming and indeed of the overall broadcaster itself. Obviously, while Aamir Liaquat was in Geo's employ, his producers, editors, crew, and channel executives knew full well what a charlatan he was and yet continued to deceive their viewers with a hyped up image of his piety.

But what is even more galling as far as Aamir Liaquat's latest "explanation" is, is how he immediately lays the blame for the "conspiracy" at the feet of those who are "against the finality of the Prophethood" and "against those who love the Prophet." Recall that Aamir Liaquat once condoned on his programme on Geo, a declaration that Ahmadis were wajib-ul-qatl (those whose killing can be justified), which was followed by the subsequent assassinations of two Ahmadis and Aamir Liaquat's live telecasts being suspended by Geo. "The tongue that speaks of the Prophet, Peace be upon him," he says in his most recent programme on ARY, "could never utter obscenities." If that is not the worst form of munafiqat (hypocrisy) in the name of religion, I don't know what is. Has this man no shame at all?

You can see the slimebag squirming here:




As a response, and to make Aamir Liaquat squirm some more, I would have love to have posted here the badchodaboy remix which I saw yesterday (man, these guys are quick) but, unfortunately, it too has disappeared off Youtube. If you find a link for it, let us know.

Thanks to @WarisJunejo, here it is:



Incidentally, do ARY head honchos really think Aamir Liaquat can ride this out?

With Friends Like These...

On Geo's Aapas Ki Baat show today, Najam Sethi referred to an interview that Imran Khan gave a few days ago and expressed incredulity that more notice had not been taken of the explosive claims the PTI chief had made. In it, Sethi said, Khan had claimed that a message had gone out from the army chief General Kayani to the Chief Justice of Pakistan Iftikhar Chaudhry not to drag the army into its battles with the government, and specifically that if the Supreme Court invoked Article 190 of the constitution (requiring all executive and judicial authorities to come to the aid of the Supreme Court), it should not expect the army to come to its aid.

I was truly surprised because I too had not heard about this claim anywhere and, if true, Sethi's incredulity would be absolutely spot on. Leave aside the whole question of what Article 190 actually states - for the record, there is no mention of the military in it and, in any case, even if the SC invokes 190, it does not automatically translate into calling upon the army to intervene - if true, Imran Khan's claims should have amounted to a scandalization of the Supreme Court. Not only was he claiming that there were backdoor contacts between the army and the SC, he was actually saying that the court was willing to take into account political considerations in its judgements (yes, yes, let's leave the snide comments for the time being).

Once I started searching for where these claims appeared, it quickly became clear to me why more notice had not been taken by the media and the public over these comments. The said interview was on Dr Shahid Masood's new show on Express News, called Shahidnama, which aired first on July 27. I mean, who watches Dr S&M anyway (new hair notwithstanding)?? Perfectly understandable that it went under the radar for most people...

In any case, here is the clip... the relevant portion begins around 02:20 into the clip.




For those who do not understand Urdu, this is a translated transcript of the operative part of the interview:

IK: If the Supreme Court goes towards 190 and demands that state institutions come to its aid, which is in 190, I say the army should stand with the Supreme Court. My information is that, last October, when the Supreme Court was moving ahead on the NRO [National Reconciliation Ordinance], a message was conveyed from the army to it, that if you invoke 190, we will not come [to your aid].
SM: You're saying a very big thing here...
IK: This is my information.
SM: How reliable is it? Do you believe on [sic] it?
IK: I think it's very reliable. They gave this message then that if the Chief Justice...because then the Chief Justice backed down. I believe that...
SM: One minute Imran, let me repeat this. The army sent a message to the court not to move ahead on this, otherwise 'we will not stand with you'...
IK: Yes, 'we will not allow destabilization'. Meaning they would not let democracy be destabilized...
SM: So, the judges...
IK: ..and now they've completely ruined democracy..
SM: No, but listen to me. Why did the judges back down?
IK: Look...
SM: This is very strange...
IK: The amount of pressure this government has put on Chief Justice Iftikhar.. neither did the friendly opposition come to his aid, because in the 18th Amendment they also sat on /sided with [unclear] the Parliamentary Committee...
SM: Imran wait...
IK: Listen to me...
SM: People like us get killed in the crossfire of these silent messages. I often get killed personally. I have shared this in private with you and you know, I have often got killed in the crossfire. I mean, the message goes across to 'them' and we get hit in the crossfire...

It goes on but you get the idea. So not only did Imran Khan claim that the SC was open to receiving messages from the army/ outsiders influencing it, but that the learned judges who are supposed to dispense justice on the merits of the law without fear or favour or other extraneous considerations, allowed that message to influence their judgements. As Sethi pointed out, forget the media not taking this up, neither did the Supreme Court take notice of this clear scandalization, nor was any clarification ever issued by the ISPR, denying any of this.

Unwittingly, Immy bhai has dealt a real body blow to the institution he claims to want to strengthen. Can the Supreme Court allow this open contempt of court to pass? Can it afford not to haul Immy bhai up on charges of scandalizing the court, especially while threatening the government and others with possible contempt and condemning bureaucrats left right and centre on the same charges? Can the military afford to continue to keep mum? Let us see if DrS&M really does get hit in the crossfire once again or not.

Straight Talk Continues from KK

I don't really know what's happened to Kamran Khan. Since that day, a couple of days after the Abbottabad raid, he has been more outspoken about the failures of our military establishment and the hypocrisy of our "strategic" security policies than he has probably ever been in his broadcasting career. It does make a nice change from the one-sided diatribes against civilian bungling that had allowed his programme to become extremely predictable and monotonous over the past year. (Lest this be misunderstood, I am not at all arguing that the ineffectiveness or corruption of civilian leaderships and bureaucracy should not be exposed. Only that in matters of security and on foreign policies regarding Kashmir, India, Afghanistan and the US there should be an equally fair assessment of the military which sets the tone, if not the entire agenda, of these issues. And also that the electronic media needs to provide some perspective to viewers when discussing the multiple crises of the Pakistani state - let's just say in the most understated manner that it's certainly not all the fault of the civilians who have been in partial control of this blighted country for less than half its existence).

In any case, whatever it is that has happened to Kamran Khan, I hope it continues.

Watch particularly from around 5:55 through to the end of the clip (from today's show Aaj Kamran Khan Ke Saath on Geo)...

Signs Of The Times?

Let's get some things straight. There are still a large number of BIG questions unanswered about the killing in Abbottabad of Osama bin Laden. Many in Pakistan are choosing to obsess over how the American Navy SEALs team managed to come in and go out of Pakistan without being detected by the vaunted and financially over-indulged Pakistani military. Others are also questioning whether one should take the US government's and the ISI's word that OBL was indeed present in the compound that was attacked and whether he was, in fact, killed as stated. These are NOT the questions I am talking about.

The question that really needs to be answered is how it was possible for the most wanted man in the world to be living literally under the nose of Pakistan's men in khaki, whose leader had declared almost at the same spot only a week ago that his men had broken the back of terrorism and that Pakistani "dignity" would not be compromised for the sake of "prosperity." The question that really needs to be answered is why we - the people of Pakistan - should take anything he says with any seriousness if, in fact, he and his boys are really that incompetent. And why the Pakistani people should continue to give up their prosperity to fund such incompetence. The question that really needs to be answered, if the boys in khaki are not to be taken as the most incompetent people on the face of the earth, is what they were hoping to gain from such brazen duplicity. Because that really is the only choice available in their defence: nincompoop-ness vs two-facedness. Thanks to whatever their defence may be, Pakistan has a choice of being considered either a failed or a rogue state.

But if any good can come out of this fiasco, it had to be what I witnessed while watching Aaj Kamran Ke Saath on Geo tonight. The tone was in remarkable contrast to what most of the Pakistani electronic media (with a couple of notable exceptions) had decided to feed the Pakistani public over the last two days. The 'line' seemed to be completely reversed from what the Pakistani public has been force-fed generally over the last decade. And if it means what I think it does, coming from the well-connected Kamran Khan, it might just indicate some sort of silver lining for a future that looked increasingly bleak.

See this clip of the first 12-odd minutes of the programme and decide for yourself (you can watch the whole programme here):




Can one still hope to dream?

Super Bull Gives You Wings (Updated)

First things first: apologies to all for the disappearing act. (For those who actually noticed, a silent note of appreciation.) Had been away for a rather long stretch of time and while I was able to follow developments back home in an irregular fashion, simply did not have the time or access to all the information to put a post up (the perils of work work). And much has happened in the media while I have been away, which I hope to get round to in a one-by-one fashion. In particular, there are some interesting developments brewing on the electronic media front.

However, I first want to take up the issue which apparently threatens the very survival of humanity itself. Yes, I am referring to the shut down of Geo's sports channel Geo Super and it's music and entertainment channel Aag. To hear Geo talk about it, it is nothing less than the rule of tyranny, the deprivation of Pakistanis of all that is good and worth living for, and the wiping out from people's lives of all information, healthy physical activity and freedom of expression. They now have a 'count-up' on Geo News, ala the 2007 'Emergency', of the exact number of days, hours, minutes and seconds that Pakistanis have been flung into darkness, and even have begun a campaign to get the citizens of Pakistan to grant them a "public license" to resume broadcast (whatever that may be). Geo Super and Aag logos with a cross across them are now regular fixtures on their other two channels (Geo News and Geo Entertainment) and a sidebar regularly updates with the latest maulvi, sportsman, politician, actor, singer or other celebrity to condemn the snatching away of the people's rights.

But before this came to pass the Jang Group (which owns Geo) also used its newspapers - the widely read Jang and the not-so-widely-read The News - to try and browbeat the authorities by running regular front-page stories about the malafide intentions of the government and the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA). On the day - April 7 - that Dawn's lead story was about a US Congressional report severely critical of Pakistan and the Express Tribune's and Pakistan Today's lead stories were about the removal from his ministership of Sindh Home Minister Zulfiqar Mirza (the PPP apparently giving in to its ally the MQM's demands), Jang and The News' main leads were about the government having shut Geo Super down. So much for unbiased handling of news priorities. This was, of course, in addition to the wall-to-wall coverage that Geo News had begun to provide on the 'event' from a day before, with the news taking pride of place as the top news headline.

Messages of condemnation have come pouring in from as far afield as Reporters Without Borders and as close to home as the Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists - which bizarrely dubbed the issue one of "human rights" - even as the Jang Group has tried to paint the issue as one of governmental victimization. To make matters worse, PEMRA has until yesterday (when it finally placed ads in some papers) been unable to present a clear defence of its actions or explain the exact realities from its point of view.

 The PEMRA ad in Express Tribune and other papers on April 11

There is so much rhetorical chaff involved from both sides that it is important to separate out the facts of the case, which I will attempt to do here.

Let us first examine the claims of Geo itself. The Jang Group claims (if one goes by the news stories on its news channel and print publications) that Geo Super and Aag have been shut down because:

1) It was promoting sports and healthy entertainment in Pakistan
2) It was doing so selflessly with no thought to losses incurred
3) The government wants to hit the Jang Group financially because of its relentless criticism of the government

In addition, the Jang Group claims:

4) Geo Super was/is Pakistan's first and only sports channel
5) Aag was shut down as an act of further vengeance on the part of the government
6) Pakistani's have been deprived of sports, sports news and healthy entertainment because of these shut-downs

Let us first look at the latter claims (4-6).

With respect to 4):

The claim that Geo Super was/is Pakistan's first and only sports channel is technically patently false. It is registered in Dubai and is as Pakistani under that criteria as e.g. Ten Sports or Star Sports or Star ESPN, all of which broadcast also to Pakistan under legally obtained "landing rights" or permission to distribute. In fact, it is because Geo Super is registered as a foreign channel that it obtained local landing rights for distribution within Pakistan when it began broadcasting. The reason it is registered in Dubai could well be in order to prevent Pakistani authorities from having a look at its revenues and to avoid tax/ license fee obligations here, though there is another reason which I will just come to. Yes, it does employ more Pakistanis than the other channels and has covered Pakistani domestic sports more than the other sports channels but nothing more than that. It has no local license.

Furthermore, under PEMRA's current rules to prevent monopolies (Clause 13, PEMRA Rules 2009), no corporate entity can hold more than four channel licenses. The Jang Group already has four channel licenses - for Geo News, Geo Entertainment, Aag and Geo English (which was never launched). Unless those rules are changed, the Jang Group must give up one of their licenses to apply for one for Geo Super, which it apparently seems unwilling to do. Also under PEMRA rules, any local licensee for a satellite channel must declare its revenues and give a percentage of them to PEMRA as annual license fees. In the case of a sports channel such as Geo Super the annual fee would come to Rs. 700,000/- + 7.5% of the annual gross advertisement revenue as per audited accounts. (See Schedule A, Table-1). (As an aside, let me just also point out that from my understanding, PEMRA has no system in place to verify if the revenue claims of any channel are actually correct or not, or to challenge an audit. It simply takes the channel's word on this, which given the way most businesses operate in Pakistan and advertising receipts and expenses are juggled, almost surely means that revenues are under-reported in all cases.)

Incidentally, Geo Super had been in default of even the landing rights fees (Rs. 300,000 + 5% of gross advertising revenues as per audited accounts) for the past four years, a matter which may have been sorted out after the intervention of the courts prior to the ICC Cricket World Cup (CWC), when Geo asked the courts to stop PEMRA from taking it off air during the CWC even though its 5-year license was expiring. I will deal with this further on in this post.


With respect to 5):

According to PEMRA, Aag was ordered shut down because after the stoppage of Geo Super broadcasts (we will come to this too), the Jang Group began to show the Indian Premier League cricket fixtures on Aag, which was a violation of its licensing terms. Aag TV has a license for entertainment programming, not sports. Under the licensing rules, no channel can switch its programming genre without a fresh application for a new license. The Jang Group had also violated this provision during the CWC by showing cricket matches on Aag, for which it had already been issued show-cause notices. However, partly out of deference to the Supreme Court's orders allowing the CWC to proceed without hindrance and partly out of the fear of a public backlash, PEMRA had not taken any drastic action in the matter then. In effect, however, Aag had violated the PEMRA Ordinance of 2002.


With respect to 6):

This claim is also demonstrably false since neither has sports news been affected on news channels, nor has sporting or entertainment activity come to a halt because of a sports channel shutting down and Aag being taken off air. In addition, there are still other sports channels and entertainment and music channels being broadcast.

Now let's come to the Jang Group's claims 1)-3) about why Geo Super has shut down. First of all, no sane individual would be willing to accept claim 1), that the government's reasons for stopping Geo Super were because of its antipathy for either sports or entertainment activities. That the Jang Group would even make such a claim says more about its idea of the intelligence and gullibility of its viewers / readers than anything else.

As for claim 2), no one who has endured the infuriating barrage of advertising on Geo Super during a cricket match (a minimum of three ads between each over, more during fall of wickets) could possibly ever believe that the Jang Group's motivations for running a sports channel were selfless. Indeed, nobody could ever believe that any commercial broadcaster would be in the business to only serve viewers interests and not to make money. Let's not be absurd. Yes, Geo Super would not have made the killing it makes broadcasting cricket in other sports, but its revenues from cricket broadcasts (which form the majority of its programming in any case) easily outweigh the costs of non-cricket broadcasts. Despite the hefty price of obtaining exclusive rights for the CWC for example, Geo Super was in the game because it made money not because it lost money. Keep in mind also that the way the Jang Group (and other media houses with multiple channels and publications) marketing operates, advertisers often are lured with bundled packages of advertising across all their channels and publications, which also subsidizes programming with lesser viewership. If the Jang Group really wants to insist on its loss-making claims, perhaps it should be asked to open its Dubai-based account books for public scrutiny. Somehow I don't think this will ever come to pass.

We can thus safely dismiss the Jang Group's claims 1), 2), 4), 5) and 6) as being patently false. The only claim that may have merit is claim 3), i.e. that PEMRA's actions constitute an attempt by the government to hit the Jang Group financially for its hard line against the government. In fact, this is almost surely true. But before we come to this, one final critical point needs to be cleared up:

Has the government through PEMRA actually shut Geo Super down?

Screen shot of Geo Super channel on cable

Almost everyone would have seen this image where Geo Super used to be. Does this mean PEMRA has pulled Geo Super off air? That's what the Jang Group would have you believe. But think about something: if the channel were actually blocked, why would you be able to see this image? Remember when Geo and other news channels were pulled off air during the 2007 'Emergency'? The screens actually went blank. In fact, what this constant image indicates is that Geo Super is still broadcasting and being distributed on cable and satellite dishes. It is just that the channel itself is not running any programming.

Now let me share with you what has actually happened, which Geo will never tell you and which PEMRA is too idiotic to explain properly. Basically, in contravention of its status as a foreign channel with landing rights in Pakistan, Geo Super had been secretively uplinking from Pakistan. Under the law, Geo Super could only regularly uplink to satellite from abroad (Dubai or wherever it chose). When this uplink facility violation was discovered, PEMRA basically shut that operation down. This does not mean that Geo Super cannot broadcast its programmes by uplinking from abroad, as it was supposed to be doing in the first place. PEMRA has pointed out in its ad yesterday that Geo Super still has landing rights and is free to distribute its programmes via cable. In effect, therefore it is Geo Super that has shut itself off.

This is also why Geo Super had scrambled to apply for a "temporary uplinking license" from PEMRA on April 4, a facility that is allowed under the rules for specific events such as a major sporting competition taking place within the country. PEMRA, in perfectly legally defensible fashion, asked Geo Super to specify the event it wanted to cover. Since Geo Super could not name any, PEMRA was within its rights to refuse, which they apparently have still not technically done. The Jang Group's claims of unfair victimization, at least on the basis of this alleged refusal, are merely attempts at a smokescreen.

It is also important to recall exactly what happened during the court case that the Jang Group brought against PEMRA before the CWC since Geo has claimed on numerous occasions that PEMRA and the government are in violation of the court's orders. Basically, just before the CWC, PEMRA had reminded Geo Super that its landing rights permission for 5 years was about to expire at the end of February and that it had not, as per PEMRA Rules, reapplied for permissions six months earlier. This would have meant that Geo Super would have had to go off air within Pakistan during the CWC. It approached the courts and pleaded with them for a stay on PEMRA taking any action against it as well as to ensure that PEMRA forbade cable operators from running any channel showing the CWC that did not have the rights to show the matches in Pakistan.

This is how the official wire agency APP reported  the conclusion of the case (read in particular the bold bits):

"ISLAMABAD, Feb 1 (APP): Islamabad High Court (IHC) on Tuesday disposed of Geo Super landing rights case on the assurance of counsel of the petitioner and the respondent to resolve the issue with mutual consent within a week. A single member bench comprising Justice Tariq Anwar Kasi resumed hearing regarding the landing rights case of Geo Super.

Counsel for Geo Super Akram Sheikh apprised the court that Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA) is not implementing the Supreme Court orders in letter and spirit. He contended that in case of landing rights expired on February 28 Geo Super would not be able to telecast ICC cricket World Cup matches to be played after that date. Afnan Karim Kundi, counsel for PTV apprised the court that the petitioner did not present the law and rules of landing rights in front of the Court. He said that the PEMRA ordinance was promulgated in 2002 and that nobody was being victimized.

Shahid Mehmood Khokhar, another counsel for PTV, informed the court that GEO is warying [sic] to overcome its losses through the courts.

Salman Akram Raja, Counsel for PEMRA, told the court that the authority was not going to “off air” Geo Super transmission despite that they are defaulter of PEMRA for the last four years. He said,”We are implementing the court orders and PEMRA has circulated a copy of court orders on landing rights to all cable operators in this regard.”

Later when counsel of Geo Super Tariq Hassan prayed the court for more relief, the learned Justice remarked, “If you are not satisfied then the court will decide the case on the merit.” However, the counsel for Geo said that his client was ready to sort out matters with PEMRA within one week.

Both the counsel of the petitioner and respondents prayed the court that they would solve the matter with mutual consent within one week so kindly dispose of the case.

After hearing the arguments, the court disposed of the case by passing following orders: “The counsel for PEMRA informed the court that they do not intend to off air the transmission of petitioner channel in connection with PEMRA press release of January 28 providing base for filing the petition.”

“The above undertaking that they would settle issue of annual fee payment within one week time, learned counsel placed on record a letter where by the orders of Supreme Court has been acted upon and a copy has been circulated to all cable operators, since the grievances are no more now, therefore, counsel for the petitioner wants withdrawal of the petition , the case is disposed off.”"

So basically, Geo itself had its case disposed of and there is no longer a case of any violation of the court's orders.

Given all these lies, half-truths and fabrications on the part of Geo, why do I then still say that the Jang Group is almost surely also being victimized by the government? Simply because PEMRA's hands are not clean either. Although PEMRA has responded angrily to the Jang Group's claims involving one of its former officers (who alleged to The News that he was issued verbal instructions to cause problems for Geo Super), even leaving the veracity of this particular incident aside, there is little doubt - from background and off-the-record interviews - that PEMRA did undertake a policy of using cable operators to make things difficult for Geo. This involved cable operators arbitrarily switching Geo Super's position in their channel bouquets and degrading its signals. It all culminated in the so-called strike by cable operators during the CWC, ostensibly against PEMRA's high-handedness but which actually targeted Geo Super in particular by leaving the field open only for Pakistan Television to show that day's match. This of course impacted Geo Super's advertising revenues significantly at least on that day. It may all be legally difficult to prove but the thinking behind it was the same that General Musharraf employed after his Emergency regulations failed to curb the hostility of private news channels like Geo. And this thinking is to hit them where it really hurts: in the pocket.

In addition, one has only to look at PEMRA's past record of taking to task other violations of its Rules. As the large number of illegal cable channels showing pirated films all over Pakistan with immunity - in total violation of the PEMRA Ordinance - demonstrates, there are violations, and then there are violations. Had the Jang Group not been on a warpath against the government, it is more than likely that PEMRA would have taken a lenient view of the group's violations, as it has done with many before.

Where the Jang Group's stupidity lies is that it has allowed PEMRA and the government a handy legal excuse to go after it. Already PEMRA is threatening to go to court in response to the fabrication of allegations against it and to pray for Geo Super to be permanently blacklisted for its violations. If you must take on the government politically, it usually is a good idea to keep your nose clean in other ways. But then, the Jang Group has hardly been known to pay all its taxes and has never shied away from using media clout to get what it wants, whether justified or not. Recall that the Jang Group is also alleged to be a defaulter of over 90 crores in back-taxes over many years, a case that continues to remain pending and is dredged up only when the government wants to exert pressure on the group. If only the average taxpayer had that kind of luxury.

What this brouhaha also shows is how neither the government nor the media hold the moral high ground in Pakistan. It's a sordid, sordid business in which lies and damned lies are the norm and the poor unsuspecting public are merely emotional pawns one way or the other. Once a compromise is reached - and it will be one way or another since the stakes are too high for both parties to take it over the edge - the public who think they are bringing about popular change by affixing their names to silly petitions, will be left by the wayside.


: : : UPDATES : : :

Update I (12 April 2011):

Trust politicians to jump into the fray with loud rhetoric but little in the way of information or understanding of the issues. This was the main story in The News today, which I saw only after I had posted the above piece.

We have also been made aware that PEMRA has today issued "show cause notices" to both Geo Super and Geo News. Geo Super has been issued the notice for "illegally blocking transmission without any cogent or lawful reason in violation of Section 28 of the PEMRA Act 2007" (Amended PEMRA Ordinance 2002). The following is Section 28 of the Act:

"28. Suspension of broadcast media or distribution service.- A broadcast media or distribution service operator shall not cease or suspend broadcasting except on account of force majeure or with the prior approval of the Authority."

Geo News has been issued a notice "under Section 20 for propagating false and baseless news maligning PEMRA and deceiving the public." Section 20 of the PEMRA Act 2007 deals basically with the 'Terms and Conditions of the License' and its clause (d) specifies that licensee must "comply with the rules made under this ordinance." Section 1-(d) in the Schedule-A of the PEMRA Rules states that "No programme shall be aired which..."

"(d) contains anything defamatory or knowingly false;"

Finally, our friend @mirza9 has also pointed out that the satellite licenses Geo News and Geo Entertainment are registered under the name of Independent Media Corporation (Pvt) Ltd. while the licenses for Aag and Geo English are registered under the name of Independent Newspapers Corporation (Pvt) Ltd. which may mean that both separately registered companies could yet claim a further two licenses under the law to prevent monopolies (see main post). However, while we are not aware of their directors / CEOs / ownership details, both companies are registered at the same address and share the same telephone and fax numbers.

 Screen shot of PEMRA licensee list courtesy @mirza9

We have asked PEMRA for clarification on this issue - whether two companies that ostensibly share ownership can be issued licenses as separate entities, and are waiting to hear back from them.

The War Within Geo

If you thought Pakistani society was polarized, take a look at the open warfare going on under the same media house roof.

The issue being discussed was, of course, the sudden release of the man known as Raymond Davis from jail after the payment of diyat or 'blood money' to the relatives of the deceased. What better time than that, thought Geo's analysts with wildly divergent points of view, to attack each other in the most personalized manner possible?

First up, Geo's Capital Talk programme, where host Hamid Mir assembled a long list of panelists and commentators he knew (or hoped) would raise a hue and cry about the release, among them the odious Irfan Siddiqui, the slippery Mohammad Mallick, the dissenting lawyer for the victims' families and former foreign minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi. But star attraction was of course the once journalist-now-self-righteous turd known as Ansar Abbasi. Abbasi had made his contempt for the result of the case known earlier during Geo's news bulletins but had basically tied himself up in knots over the fact that 'Davis'' release had come about through the application of the Islamic Qissas and Diyat Laws - which have been often criticised for allowing the rich to get away with murder - laws that Abbasi can't bring himself to critique. That and the fact that ostensibly all of his former idols and regular sources, the ISI, the Sharif brothers and the judiciary were complicit in allowing 'Davis' to get away, seemed to have truly left him bewildered, though unfortunately not at a loss for words.

In today's programme, which went on air at 8pm PST, Abbasi made a number of remarkable claims, such as his opinion (presented as the gospel truth) that the case was one of 'fisaad fil arz' [spreading division in the land] rather than a double murder and therefore making diyat inapplicable. He further added that all terrorism should now solely be blamed on the military establishment, the federal government of the PPP and the Punjab government of the PMLN for letting 'Davis' go. Not for nothing is Abbasi known as an apologist for the religious extremists who might actually be carrying out the acts of terror.

But Abbasi decided this was also the time to vent his considerable frustration at fellow Geo analysts who had presented an analysis entirely opposite to his. So, without naming names but making it abundantly clear who he meant, he called Najam Sethi (who had also presented his analysis on earlier Geo bulletins) "an American agent." As proof he cited Sethi claiming to know what discussions were being held between the Pakistan government and the Americans. You can see what he said in the following clip, between 10:00 and 10:35...




It has to be mentioned that Hamid Mir had, in fact, begun his programme with a soliloquy also directed very much at Najam Sethi, criticising those who were gloating over their predictions having come true and blaming the media for misleading the public while supposedly not mentioning how the Americans had been proved wrong.

All it took was another two hours for the reply, in Aapas Ki Baat, Geo's 11pm PST programme featuring Najam Sethi. The opening intro by host Munib Farooq immediately set the tone for the programme as seemingly a reply to Mir and Abbasi. But by the end of the programme, Sethi had managed, also without naming names but making it abundantly clear who he meant, to call Ansar Abbasi and Mir brainless twits and journalists "jo apnay aap ko phannay khan samajhtay hain lekin ander se bilkul phuss hain" [who think the world of themselves but who are as empty as deflated balloons]. You can see and hear what he said between 0:00 and about 4:45 in the following clip:




Don't you just love Geo's tolerance of diversity? Or should one say glasnost?

Knowing the vindictive natures of both Abbasi and Mir, however, expect more sparks to fly in the pages of the Jang Group's publications. This is going to get very ugly unless the Jang Group clamps down now.

A Brief History of Diplomatic Immunity (Updated)

Since we Pakistanis often suffer simultaneously from the twin demons of megalomania and paranoia - verily we are better than everyone else and that is why everyone is out to get us - we often also look at history through a rather selective and distorted lens. Unfortunately, none typify this mindset more than the doyens and doyennes of the Pakistani electronic media, in whom a curious mix of hyper-patriotism, half-baked information, sincere ignorance and arrogant bluster seems generally to hold sway.

Take the issue of the day on Pakistani media: whether the American known by his apparent pseudonym "Raymond Davis" - who shot dead two men in Lahore - can be tried by Pakistani courts or whether the US government has any right to claim diplomatic immunity for him. I am not going to offer my own opinion on this because, for better or worse, this is an issue for the US and Pakistani states to sort out. (I should, however, point out that, personally speaking, I do not think armed Americans or armed anyone should be roaming around the streets of Pakistan.)

But having seen numerous commentaries on television where emotive claims have been made about how Americans have not respected diplomatic immunity in their own cases, how immunity does not extend to serious crimes or how Pakistani diplomats have never been extended this kind of privilege, I just want to direct readers to a few examples.

Here's The Independent reporting in 1997 about a case in which a drunk Georgian diplomat killed a 16-year-old girl in New York with his reckless driving and the US requested a waiver from immunity for him. (The paper reports that Georgia was unlikely to approve the request though it actually was approved at the discretion of the Georgian government and the diplomat was sentenced for 7-21 years. He was transferred back to Georgia after serving three years [link courtesy @qabacha].) The piece also cites other incidences of less egregious crimes by diplomats that go unpunished. Appropriately for us, the story is titled "Can A Diplomat Get Away With Murder?"

You may also recall the shooting dead of British constable Yvonne Fletcher apparently by Libyan embassy staff in London in 1984 as well as the wounding of 11 others. Diplomatic immunity allowed the staff not to be prosecuted at all, though Britain subsequently broke off diplomatic relations with Libya. Fifteen years later, Libya accepted "general responsibility" and paid compensation, though some experts continued to question whether the police officer's death was actually caused by someone shooting from within the embassy.

Coming to Pakistani diplomats invoking diplomatic immunity, let us recall the case of our Ambassador to Spain, Mr. Haroon-ur-Rashid Abbasi, who Pakistan withdrew from his post in 1975 without allowing prosecution when heroin was discovered in his suitcase.

Let us also recall the case of our longtime permanent rep at the UN, Ambassador Munir Akram in 2003 who was accused of assault by his then girlfriend. The US also asked Pakistan to waive immunity in that case, which Pakistan did not oblige. (The case was eventually settled when Mr Akram persuaded his girlfriend to withdraw the charges against him).

So, as they say, au contraire, my friends.

Some final points, and please remember that we are only taking issue with the 'facts' of the case as presented in the media. Television analysts have almost unanimously claimed that "Davis" did not have a 'diplomatic visa'. It might behoove someone to ask our media pundits if they have ever actually seen a Pakistani diplomatic visa. From our own investigations, it seems Pakistani visas have no such specified category of 'Diplomatic Visa' (unlike some other countries). In fact, according our sources, all foreign diplomats receive Pakistani visas with the marking "Purpose of Visit:" "Official" or "Official Business" (not Official / Business, another category that does not exist) on their diplomatic passports. If they carry such a visa on their diplomatic passport and the Foreign Office has been so notified, they receive diplomatic immunity during their stay in Pakistan.

Here are some scans of Davis' passport as presented on DawnNews' Reporter programme...

This is the marking on his passport, which clearly states that he is on "diplomatic assignment" (click picture to enlarge):

This is his current visa, issued incidentally not in Washington (as claimed by Shireen Mazari on Geo and Syed Talat Hussain on DawnNews) but in Islamabad:

In fact, "Davis" only once received a three-month visa in 2009 from Washington. His subsequent 4-month visa in 2010 and his current 2-year visa were both issued within Pakistan.

Kamran Khan on Geo also went to great lengths to 'break the news' that "Davis" is a spy who works for the CIA. He almost certainly is. But not only is that not amazing insight, we have to ask, so? Is his actual work the issue of contention here? As former ambassador Zafar Hilaly pointed out on Dunya, spooks get posted on "cover postings" abroad all the time, including by the Pakistan Foreign Office, and they all receive diplomatic immunity under the Vienna Convention. Let's at least be clear what we are arguing about.


: : : UPDATES : : :

There have been some comments questioning some of my assertions in this post, which have been answered in the comments section. You may want to have a look.

A couple of other cases have been brought to our notice which we are also sharing. The first is the case in January 2001 of a Russian diplomat who killed a woman in Canada while driving drunk. A couple of quotes from this piece are worth pointing out.

"Andrey Knyazev was charged with criminal negligence causing death, impaired driving, failing to provide a breath sample, and criminal negligence causing bodily harm. Knyazev immediately claimed diplomatic immunity and on Monday, Russia denied Canada's request to lift it. [Russian Ambassador Vitaly] Churkin urged Canadians not to judge all Russians on the actions of one man. But he defended his government's right to recall Knyazev, saying it's tradition and common practice in the diplomatic community. “Many people are not happy that we didn't lift the diplomatic immunity," Churkin said. "The Canadian government has expressed its displeasure but recognized that this is our right.""

And this bit of wisdom from Canada's Foreign Minister that Pakistanis may also want to understand:

"[The] tragedy has raised questions about the use of diplomatic immunity to escape prosecution. But Foreign Affairs Minister John Manley says he will not use this case to press for changes. "There's an old saying among lawyers that hard cases make bad law," Manley said following a cabinet meeting Tuesday. "I think that (revising diplomatic rules) is something that we'd want to look at in a broader circumstance, not in the situation which we're in now," he said."

Incidentally, Shahid Saeed has also pointed out two further cases where Pakistani diplomats have invoked diplomatic immunity. The first involved Col Mohammad Hamid, a military attache in Pakistan's High Commission in London, who was caught in 2000 having sex with a prostitute in his car in a public place. When caught, Hamid immediately invoked diplomatic immunity and therefore could not be arrested. Here's an Indian Express report of the incident, which was also reported in the English papers.

The second involved the arrest in April 2001 in Kathmandu of Pakistan's first secretary Mohammad Arshad Cheema. 16kg of high-intensity explosive RDX were recovered from his residence. The Indian government believed him to be also linked to the hijacking of the Indian Airlines flight IC-814 which resulted in the freeing from Indian prisions of (subsequently Daniel Pearl murder accused) Omar Saeed Sheikh and Jaish-e-Mohammad leader 'Maulana' Masood Azhar. This report from the respected Indian magazine Frontline presents a wider and less one-sided perspective on the arrest. It also provides evidence of two things we already asserted in our post: that spies (and even military operatives) are often posted by foreign governments under diplomatic cover and that diplomatic immunity extends even to grave crimes. Cheema was expelled from Nepal rather than be prosecuted even though, by any definition, possessing high intensity explosives for ulterior motives is a very serious charge in any country.