ISLAMABAD: “The move to lump together all media organizations whether print, broadcast, electronic and social media and merging all their regulatory bodies into one is thoughtless, impracticable, provocative and smacks of imposing new curbs on freedom of expression. ‘Google search’ alone is not enough, as the information minister seems to have done, to make a decision that requires understanding of the complexity of issues in a unified media regulatory body in the country”.
This was stated by former Senator Farhatullah Babar Secretary General PPPP in a statement here on Friday. Instead of creating new regulatory bodies or making new legislation we need to implement the existing laws and strengthen the existing media regulatory bodies by making them truly professional and independent of the executive, he said.
Hate speech flourishes while media continues to be manipulated and pressured and forced to resort to self censorship. It is intriguing that the decision was announced almost on heels of a damning report by the HRCP on visible and invisible curbs on media.
We need to examine the state of media today and remove hurdles in way of freedom of expression instead of creating new bodies to curb free expression, he said.
Before subjecting all media organizations and bodies to a uniform regulatory law we should bring all state institutions under a uniform accountability mechanism, he said.
It is a provocation to frame a uniform regulatory mechanism for all types of media without recourse to the Parliament on the one hand and disallowing Parliament from framing a uniform accountability law for all state institutions on the other.