Further supplementary evidence from BBC
World Service
FURTHER INFORMATION ON BBC URDU DISTRIBUTION
PROBLEMS IN PAKISTAN
From May 2009 BBC Urdu was providing five minute
news bulletins throughout the day to 34 FM stations around the
country, and latterly it also provided the well known and influential
BBC Urdu programme, Sairbeen, which went out for half hour
in the evening. Not long after the addition of Sairbeen
to some of our partners' airwaves, they were asked to remove all
BBC programming, as they were running it "without permission".
Apart from the necessity of gaining such permission
being questionable in itself, these radio stations had been running
BBC news without interference for several months after the verdict
of the Sindh High Court and the public verbal endorsement of the
then Minister of Information (Sherry Rehman), which enabled BBC
Urdu to go back on air following earlier disruption to the service
in 2008.
Various BBC journalists and executives then sought
and had innumerable conversations with PEMRA (the regulator),
the Ministry of Information, including the Minister himself, and
other influential figures in Pakistan, who each professed to have
no problem with the BBC. However, for some months no "permission"
was issued by PEMRA for stations to run BBC. So whilst permission
was not denied, it was witheld. Finally all partners were given
permission by PEMRA to run only three bulletins (as opposed to
bulletins throughout the day). Again the BBC has questioned the
basis for allowing only three bulletins, but no answer has been
forthcoming. Currently the BBC is providing 3 x 10 min news programmes
to 37 stations with about six more in the pipeline.
22 November 2010
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