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Saga of Pakistan: Censorship, prison state

Pakistan recently celebrated its 75th Independence Day on August 14 and weeks after its anniversary, the country’s media regulatory authority, PEMRA, placed a ban on the live telecast of the speeches of Imran Khan, a former Prime Minister. It also blocked YouTube from carrying his speeches.The ban was a sequel to Khan’s thunder at a […]

Pakistan recently celebrated its 75th Independence Day on August 14 and weeks after its anniversary, the country’s media regulatory authority, PEMRA, placed a ban on the live telecast of the speeches of Imran Khan, a former Prime Minister. It also blocked YouTube from carrying his speeches.
The ban was a sequel to Khan’s thunder at a rally held in Islamabad two days earlier. Ever since he was booted out of power through a vote on the floor of Parliament some four months ago, he has been going around the country ‘slandering and threatening’ his political opponents, critics, journalists and, above all, the military, which had helped him realise his political dreams. The ban on live telecast of his speech amounted to censoring his words, which is neither fair nor proper, as Dawn, the sedate English daily from Karachi, has observed editorially.
The PTI leadership has since secured some relief from the courts, but that is not germane to our discussion.

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