Allegedly aired ‘hate speech’ against Sharif

Pakistan’s media watchdog on Friday issued a notice to ARY News for airing “hate speech” against Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.

Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA) asked the channel to respond to the notice by March 31.

According to the details, a guest speaker, who appeared on a programme called ‘The Reporter’ on Thursday, had termed a recent statement of Mr. Sharif as “blasphemous”.

“This is a very dangerous trend. The hosts of the programme neither intervened on this occasion nor stopped him from passing such comments, which is a violation of PEMRA rules,” the media watchdog said. It asked the channel to explain why action should not be taken against it for airing “hate speech”.

Also, PEMRA issued show cause notices to nine other channels for airing “fake news” about a plane crash near Rawalpindi on Wednesday. The channels have been asked to submit a reply by March 31.

PEMRA also issued a separate notice to Dawn News TV for failing to complying with its orders to suspend ‘Zara Hat Kay’ talk show for three days. The host of the show on March 9 had discussed a corruption case against Justice Shaukat Aziz Siddiqui of the Islamabad High Court despite the case being sub judice in the Supreme Judicial Council.