Federal Information Minister Sherry Rehman on Wednesday told the National Assembly that the PPP government has no plan to censor private television channels and FM radio programmes. Replying to a question raised by MNA Surriya Asghar, Sherry said that PPP believes in freedom of expression as it abolished black laws of the former dictatorial regime.
Sherry said that there was need of a code of conduct for media and private TV channels and FM radio stations are supposed to form a regulatory body. Under this body self-regulatory regime would be formulated, she added. She said under the law, Pemra can issue show cause notices and impose fines on private channels for airing obscene or immoral content and it has performed its duty in this regard.
To a supplementary query, she said that in this age of satellite channels it was very difficult to block foreign channels. She said in Pakistan some cable operators show Indian channels, similarly Indian operators telecast Pakistani channels. She said that the government was trying to find out ways to block FM channels run by anti-Pakistan elements.