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Pakistan Peoples Party may take action against Geo TV

Published by TV Explore on November 5, 2009

Stung by an avalanche of criticism from the leading Jang media group, the ruling Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) has decided to take action against it by imposing some curbs on the electronic media or by boycotting the organisation.

President Asif Ali Zardari, who also heads the PPP, has called a meeting of the party’s central executive committee at the presidency on November 9 to discuss this issue, party sources said. Zardari and his party believe the Jang media group has been working on a “special agenda” to topple the PPP-led government at the centre, they said.

“The way the Jang group, especially its Geo News channel, created hype by twisting the statement of Muttahida Qaumi Movement chief Altaf Hussain about asking the President to offer a sacrifice on Monday has annoyed all in the PPP, including Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani,” a senior PPP leader who did not want to be named said to a news agency.

Geo News had reported on Monday that the MQM chief had asked Zardari to quit the post of President over the issue of the National Reconciliation Ordinance, a controversial law passed by former military ruler Pervez Musharraf to grant PPP leaders immunity in graft cases.

Several MQM leaders had made similar claims to other reporters but the party later changed its stance. However, PPP leaders believe Geo News had implied that “Zardari is a product of the NRO” and he should face corruption cases in courts after resigning.

Major parties like the PML-N, PML-Q and MQM said they would not back a move to get parliament to endorse the NRO in line with a ruling from the Supreme Court. The PPP then decided to go back on its decision to present the NRO in parliament for ratification.

“The owner of the Jang group, Mir Shakil-ur-Rehman, has conveyed to one of our party leaders that he will throw Zardari out of the presidency within three months. How can we sit idle after receiving such a warning from the owner of a major media group?” asked the PPP leader, who is a close aide of Zardari.

He said the PPP’s opponents, acting in connivance with the Jang group, want to install a government led by former premier Nawaz Sharif’s PML-N party.

“We have already received suggestions from some senior party leaders who are unanimous that putting curbs on the media as a whole may backfire and instead the PPP should boycott the Jang group,” he said.

“By doing so, we will register not only our protest but force it to set aside its hostility to the PPP government and President Zardari,” he added.

Meanwhile, the parliament’s standing committee on information and broadcasting has decided that laws enforced by Musharraf to bridle the electronic media should be incorporated in the proposed Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority Act.

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