00:00 I am joined by Hamid Mir, a senior journalist and critic. Afzal Butt, President of PFUJ.
00:05 Let's ask him about the role of PFUJ. Were certain issues, such as the concerns of journalists,
00:13 conveyed to the government? And what was the response?
00:17 And the threat of censorship is very real, because it is a big problem in this country.
00:23 Mir sahib, let's start with you. Recently, there has been a lot of misinformation and disinformation.
00:29 You have seen that even in Europe, they are working on it, creating channels,
00:34 and thinking about how to combat it. How do you interpret this bill,
00:40 whatever points have come to us now?
00:43 Thank you, Maria Mehman. First of all, this bill has been adopted in a very hurry.
00:53 And through this bill, it seems that Pemra is being tried to make the editor of all TV channels.
01:00 That is, Pemra will control the content. And in addition to this, he has been given some
01:08 powers, on the basis of which he will decide which news is correct and which is wrong.
01:15 Now, in principle, Pemra should play the role of an independent media regulatory authority.
01:21 But it is not an independent media regulatory authority. The second thing is that this bill
01:26 that has been adopted today, obviously it has been approved by the parliament,
01:31 but it comes under the category of contempt of court. And contempt of court is also of two courts,
01:36 one Supreme Court of Pakistan and one Islamabad High Court. How is the Supreme Court of Pakistan?
01:41 Because I am a direct fan, I can tell you that in 2012, I filed a petition in the Supreme Court of Pakistan
01:49 that there should be a code of ethics of the media and the secret fund of the information ministry should be terminated
01:56 and there should be accountability of the media. We presented ourselves for accountability.
02:01 The Supreme Court of Pakistan made a media commission at that time.
02:06 That media commission talked to all stakeholders. And this case went on for six years.
02:12 There were more than a hundred hearings. And then before the 2018 election, the Chief Justice of that time
02:18 issued an order that Pemra should have an independent regulatory authority
02:24 and the executive board should have less government people and more people of civil society and independent people.
02:32 Now, when he gave this decision, the administration had come and the parliament was not present.
02:38 So, at that time, an ordinance was issued from the President of Pakistan that you should apply it through the ordinance.
02:45 So, the ordinance lapsed and when the government of Tariq-e-Insaab came, he did not follow it.
02:51 And what did he do? To control the media, he approved a bill of media development authority.
02:58 He proposed it, but it was not approved. We protested on it and in that protest, Shabaz Sharif Sahib and others came.
03:06 And you also played the clip. Now, this bill that came to our attention in the National Assembly last night,
03:14 so in this, the powers of the chairman of Pemra have been reduced.
03:19 But in the Pemra's controlling authority, the executive board, there are still more government people.
03:24 There are more government people, which is the contempt of court.
03:27 The second thing is that he said in this that the issue of salaries, that the journalists will be paid their salaries on time,
03:37 this is a good thing. I support you. But the contempt of court in this is that there was a petition in Islamabad High Court,
03:45 in that Islamabad High Court made me an amicus, and this is also a matter of 3-4 months ago.
03:50 So, in that, we said that Chief Justice of Islamabad High Court, Justice Amir Farooq asked me to tell that
03:57 journalists get their salaries on time. I said that many journalists do not get their salaries on time.
04:01 So, he said that what is the government doing in this regard? So, the advocate general there said that we are bringing a bill.
04:08 He said that the bill should be presented in the court. So, this bill was presented in the court.
04:13 So, we, on this bill, I objected that in this, it is said that if a media worker does not get salary for 60 days,
04:20 then there will be proceedings against his channel. I said that 60 days is too much. In this, you make it 30 days.
04:26 So, Chief Justice agreed with this. And when there was secretary information, he tried to argue on this.
04:34 So, he gave very harsh remarks against him. And after that, the court said that as it is said,
04:39 you bring that amendment in the bill. But that amendment did not happen and this bill has been approved.
04:44 So, I think that, I do not know that any consultation has been done with PFU or not.
04:51 Let us ask this to Mr. Bhatt. I think we will ask this to Mr. Bhatt.
04:56 Mr. Bhatt, I saw this press release of yours, in which you said that without consultation, the bill…
05:01 One of my most common questions is that what is the hurry?
05:04 I mean, you had one and a half year, you worked on this. Why are you suddenly tying your hands and legs before the government leaves?
05:10 And you did not get consultation from them? You work very closely with the police and the streets.
05:15 We have a joint action committee, which has PBA, APNS, CPNI, PFJ and MFJ.
05:22 We were in talks with all of them. And we were discussing this issue as well.
05:28 But the stance of PFJ was that, just like there is a NICOSA for the journalists,
05:35 Newspaper Implies Condition of Services Act 1973, the same kind of electronic media should have a complete server structure.
05:43 It is our issue that we do not get the time for salaries.
05:48 It is also our issue that salaries do not increase for 10 years.
05:52 One worker goes home after work at night, and the next day, he is given a permit on the stairs.
05:58 There is no way to keep the worker, nor is there a way to get him out.
06:02 There is no job security.
06:03 If this work is done against a worker, then there is no platform where the worker can go and appeal.
06:13 There is an ITNE for the journalist.
06:16 If he goes there, the judge of the ITNE listens to him.
06:21 But when we used to take the case of electronic media,
06:26 they used to say that it is written clearly that it is for the employees of the newspaper, not for the employees of electronic media.
06:33 So, we had a lot of debate on this issue.
06:38 What Mr. Mir is saying, when the permit was presented in Islamabad High Court,
06:47 we had a meeting after that.
06:49 We said that our consultation on fake news has not been completed yet.
06:54 So, you are talking about disinformation and misinformation.
06:57 Yes, disinformation.
06:59 So, why did you present the agreement without completing our consultation in Islamabad High Court?
07:07 This was my opinion and this was the opinion of the MLA Azharbagh.
07:11 At that time, we were told that this is a compromise.
07:14 We said that if it was a compromise, then it could not have been presented in the court
07:17 until all the people agree on it.
07:20 Because this is a very long process.
07:23 We often say that the milk is burnt by the milkman.
07:32 There is no law that is bad.
07:35 The problem is of the implementation and the people who implement it.
07:40 The problem is how its implementation is and after its implementation, we get to know the results.
07:47 So, did you get this surprise?
07:49 Yes, of course.
07:51 Did you contact the MLA and he told you why this happened?
07:55 He was telling us that he wanted to solve the issue of the TV channels before going to the court.
08:03 This was our daily fight.
08:05 Either it was a channel issue or this was the issue.
08:08 So, he did his job because of your demand.
08:10 He made a lot of mistakes.
08:12 We had 4-5 meetings about this disinformation and misinformation.
08:19 We could not reach any conclusion.
08:24 The people of MNC had a very good input.
08:28 PFJ had its own input.
08:30 They said that they will keep the whole world in the confines of the media.
08:33 Then who will you give the power of one news?
08:36 One news is wrong and it is okay.
08:42 It is possible that a 22nd grade officer is very capable.
08:44 But he does not understand journalism.
08:47 It is possible that a police officer is very good at his job.
08:50 Then the second thing that has been done in this is that the PBA and PFJ have been given an invitation.
08:58 But they were not given a write-off vote.
09:01 If the decision is to be made about a journalist's news or a news on a channel,
09:08 then the people who are representing the worker or the TV channel do not have a write-off vote.
