Pakistan President Leghari clamps down on press
The Pakistani media has received a jolt with the registration
of the Printing Press and Publication Ordinance promulgated by
President Farooq Leghari which authorises police to seize and
destroy what it calls ''unauthorised newssheets and newspapers''.
The press reaction to this ordinance was expressed by Urdu daily
editor Nawa-I-Waqt Majid Nizami in an interview to the
British Broadcasting Corporation. He claimed Prime Minister Nawaz
Sharif's press advisor Mushahid Hussain was not aware of it.
The president issues an ordinance on the advice of the prime minister
but here the government ministers were not even aware of it, he
said.
The Nation of Lahore has written that the need and urgency
for the promulgation of this ordinance was not clear. ''What is
even more troubling is that a government spokesperson expressed
ignorance about the promulgation.
"This implies that the ordinance has been issued without
consulting the prime minister,'' the paper wrote in an editorial.
Media analysts say the ordinance and many other events like the
selection of the federal ministers, formation of governments in
Sindh and the North-West Frontier Province and the selection of
candidates to fill the recent vacancies in the senate, all reflect
on the position of the prime minister vis-a-vis the president,
the former having a two-third majority in the national assembly
notwithstanding.
The new ordinance repeals similar ordinances of 1963 and 1996
and empowers the government to forfeit all copies of a book or
paper which tends to incite violence, condemn creation of Pakistan,
excite provincial and sectarian enmity and damage Pakistan's foreign
relations.
UNI
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