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Life & Style

PEMRA bans TV show ‘Hadsa’, says it ‘tarnishes’ Pakistan’s image

  • Portrayal will not only trigger trauma of that unfortunate victim but would also tarnish (the) country's image, it says
Published August 31, 2023

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA) has banned TV drama ‘Hadsa’, over scenes reminiscent of a notorious gang rape case, saying the series would “tarnish” the nation’s image by depicting it as an “unsafe place for women”.

Regulators said the show would be pulled from airwaves due to parallels to the real-life case of a French-Pakistani mother raped in front of her small children after her car ran out of fuel near the eastern city of Lahore.

“Portrayal of such (a) heinous act will not only trigger the trauma of that unfortunate victim but would also tarnish (the) country’s image,” said the order from the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA) released on Wednesday evening.

Sexual violence is endemic in deeply patriarchal Pakistan, where women are often treated as second-class citizens and the rape conviction rate is reported to be as low as 0.3 per cent.

The 2020 Lahore motorway rape case sparked nationwide protests after local police chided the victim for travelling at night without a male escort.

Then-police chief Umar Sheikh had repeatedly berated the woman – a resident of France – saying she probably “mistook that Pakistani society is just as safe” as her home country.

CCPO Lahore Omar Shaikh blames victim for Motorway rape

But PEMRA suggested on Wednesday that ‘Hadsa’, which began airing last week, would cause overseas viewers to wrongly “perceive Pakistan as (an) unsafe place for women”, adding that it did not portray a “true picture of Pakistani society”.

Lawyer Muhammad Ahmad Pansota told AFP that he had lodged a complaint against the show with PEMRA on behalf of the rape victim.

“She said to me actually that whenever she watches an episode, or how people react when they watch it, she has to go through the entire trauma again,” he said. “She’s not very comfortable with that.”

Episodes four and five of ‘Hadsa’ show a woman and her son being kidnapped and assaulted by a gang when their car breaks down, later revealing the character was raped.

Before the series was censored, actress Hadiqa Kiani, who plays the woman, said it was not based on real-life events.

“Unfortunately, the horrific act of rape and violence happens far too often in our society,” she wrote on the social media site X.

“‘Hadsa’ is not based on any one person’s story, it is based off of a sickly common part of our reality.”

In the wake of the Lahore incident, backlash over victim-blaming and abysmal conviction rates spurred legal reforms, including the establishment of special courts and chemical castration of serial rapists.

Two men were sentenced to death in 2021 for participating in the rape, but have yet to be executed.

Earlier this year, the website Wikipedia was blocked for hosting “blasphemous content”, while ‘Barbie’ movie and the critically acclaimed transgender romance film ‘Joyland’ also fell foul of censors.

Comments

Comments are closed.

KU Aug 31, 2023 06:53pm
Don't worry because everyone around the world knows that the image of our country is tarnished every day when women and children are abused or killed and the culprits always get away without being punished. The image is also tarnished when we are listed at 100+ or the bottom half of listings of worse human rights, injustice, political, and religious persecution. Guess PEMRA should ban all international organizations and citizens of Pakistan from raising any kind of voice for justice and a better life.
thumb_up Recommended (5)
Bashir A Aziz Sep 01, 2023 12:11am
PEMRA needs to find better things to do than to try to hide the facts of our society. The whole world knows how our women are treated by the male dominated society. Rape in rampant in Pakistan because the perpetrators are not held accountable and agencies. like PEMRA, brush it under the rug.
thumb_up Recommended (2)
Nasir Sep 01, 2023 09:30am
May have different approach if the victim female was from poor or lower middle class family. Two Pakistan theory at work.
thumb_up Recommended (1)