Daily Times
May 31, 2021
Opposition parties PPP and PML-N have explicitly stated their disagreement with the government’s newly proposed media ordinance. PPP senator Sherry Rehman and PML-N spokesperson Marriyum Aurangzeb tweeted their criticisms against the said ordinance.
The Pakistan Media Development Authority (PDMA) Ordinance 2021 is a plan for “Institutionalizing censorship”, Rehman said.
The new ordinance will force media outlets to “either become state mouthpieces or go under”, Rehman tweeted.
2/2There will be no onus on the Govt to provide warning or rationales for clampdowns. The law may even extend control to digital platforms. This is a plan for institutionalizing censorship. Media outlets will either become state mouthpieces or go under. #notogaglaws#notoPMDA
Pakistan TV Bans Talk Show Host After He Criticized Army
The action against Hamid Mir comes after he spoke out against escalating curbs on freedom of expression in the country.
Munir Ahmad
ISLAMABAD (AP) A Pakistani television station Monday took a prominent journalist off air, removing him as host of a popular talk show after he criticized the country’s powerful military, the journalist and rights groups said.
The development comes just days after the journalist, Hamid Mir, made a fiery speech at a rally in support of a fellow reporter, Asad Ali Toor, who was beaten up by three unidentified men in his apartment in Islamabad.
Islamabad [Pakistan], May 31 (ANI): Pakistan's opposition parties have rejected the Imran Khan government's newly proposed media ordinance, with both PPP and PML-N criticising the ordinance on Monday.
Family members touch a coffin of a relative, who was killed in a blast outside a public park on Sunday, during a funeral in Lahore, Pakistan, March 28, 2016. | (Photo: Reuters/Mohsin Raza)
A Christian man in Pakistan was allegedly poisoned and killed by a group of radical Muslims for defending his sister from harassment, which has sparked demands for justice.Â
Arif Masih, 32, was beaten, kidnapped, poisoned and abandoned on the street in the Muslim-majority Tariqabad village of the Punjab province on May 23, the Union of Catholic Asian News reported.Â
Earlier in the week, two young men dragged his sister into the street and stripped her naked after following her home from the store and breaking into the home.