Ban On Media
With the imposition of emergency a media blackout followed. National channels like ARY One World, GEO TV, Aaj tv and other channels were also blocked. General Musharraf maintained that these channels were creating discord, misrepresenting facts, were not responsible, and were contributing to the instability of the nation. The Government also cracked down on international channels like BBC and CNN. ARY reported that authorities in Dubai had asked the network’s administration to close down its operations. The network said no reason had been given for the move.
The government expelled three journalists from the British news paper the Daily Telegraph after calling general Musharraf "our son of a bitch". This is an allusion to Franklin D. Roosevelt's defence of Nicaragua's heavy-handed but U.S.-backed dictator, Anastasio Somoza García. However this is still viewed as an extremely severe insult in Pakistan.
On 21 November 2007 two thousand detainees under the Emergency were released, but 3,000 remained in detention, according to London's Metro newspaper. Musharraf’s Govt. also arrested moderate groups of society such as human rights activists and lawyers..
Read more about this topic: Pakistani State Of Emergency, 2007
Famous quotes containing the words ban and/or media:
“On fields all drenched with blood he made his record in war, abstained from lawless violence when left on the plantation, and received his freedom in peace with moderation. But he holds in this Republic the position of an alien race among a people impatient of a rival. And in the eyes of some it seems that no valor redeems him, no social advancement nor individual development wipes off the ban which clings to him.”
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“The corporate grip on opinion in the United States is one of the wonders of the Western World. No First World country has ever managed to eliminate so entirely from its media all objectivity—much less dissent.”
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