Right, and this should be done with every institution.

what i believe is that as we all know that we have innumerable problems in our country but same is the case in other countries but freedom of speech doesnt mean that we should defame our own country by putting baseless allegations on the honorable agencies.... India is facing greater extend of corruption n other problems in their country but they never speak against their country in a way to defame it......in my opinion GEO should be banned

Agreed...Where two fight, the third always wins. I think it becomes an issue of National Security when a large institution demoralizes the army giving the enemies i.e the Indian media a chance to defame us further and extremist/seperatists a chance to strengthen their resolve.

Geo should stop justifying its position under the "Freedom of Speech", "Freedom of Media" umbrella and slogans. Nothing trumps national interest and national security.

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"The unbelievers plotted and God planned, but God is a much better planner" [Surah Al-Imran 3:54]

AOA

i). Geo should be banned?; Issue to be taken by relevant agency, PEMRA as per relevant laws, but after hearing the point of view of all stake holders including Geo News.

ii). ISI was behind attack on Hamid Mir?; This matter should be taken legally. A judicial commission is to be formed to inquire into the matter. A joint investigation team has also been formed to probe the issues. So its their task to decide into the matter. There is no good in discussing this in various fora.

iii). In our country, media is a pressure group and Geo News is a major player of this pressure group. The day Hamid Mir was shot at Karachi a religious leader ( i forgot his name) and many others were shot dead but no hew and cry made on them. Today an SI Sindh Police and his fellow were shot dead in the same city Karachi.

Religious leader was a teacher dissimenating knowledge of religion while SI was famous in booking rogue elements in Karachi. They were also important. Its narrated from AnHazrat PBUH that blood of a teacher is more important than blood of a soldier. The religious leader was a teacher and an SI was a soldier. With due respect, who is Hamid Mir, a teacher or a soldier!

If we talk of democracy then every body is equal. Similarly blood of everybody is equal. Why hue and cry for Hamid Mir and nothing for others? Hamid Mir is a media man so Media is mourning while religious leader and soldier! No problem, many a religious leaders/school teachers ( from a common student to a university professor/ mufti) and soldiers (from a foot soldier to a general/DIG police) have been killed in recent years on the name of country and religion. Its talk of day for killing of a religious leader and a soldier, their blood is thinner than water ... But media person is more important? Freedom of speech is important but Freedom of life is more important.

iv) Pakistan is not a safe country for journalists. But how many media people have been killed in recent years! because in last five years more than 20 journalists have been killed and harrassed by intelligence agencies and terrorists. Have we ever counted the dead bodies of the soldiers and common men ! Work of ISI and Army is to defend the country and they are not doing it well rather they are building their assets and exerting on others. But what media is doing. Is media not making assets. Count assets of Media people and payments /salaries taken by them. I bet salary of top anchors would be more than legal salary of the highest office of the civil or military machinery. Journalists and anchors are unearthing corruptions, defending human rights, exposing government wrong doings etc etc. What civil and military machinery is doing! Just doing corruption? Its easy to suspect or pin point somebody then doing making it right.

What I feel, media is unbridled pressure group. Musharraf was the man to give lot of liberties to media, and he became its first big victim ...... To take an example from crime scene or a bomb blast scene. Bomb is blasted, dead bodies are being transported to hospital and police/forensic/agencies have to collect evidences and media is inside the yellow line. Because they have to do more important work i.e. informing others. for them informing others is their responsibility but what for the responsibility of others who have to safe lifes and who have to capture the culprits..... . Usually what media do.... Flash, a bomb blast is heard in Karachi. Flash, bomb blast is near Nazimabad. Flash, its near Nazimabad Chorangi. Flash, dead and injured are being transferred to hospitals. Flash, 5 are dead and 10 injured. Flash, number of dead is increasig. Flash, there are less facilities to treat injured. Flash, difficulties to carry injured to hospitals. Flash, police is unable to gather evidences because of great rush..... What is media doing at this time instead of creating panic and problems . Problems for carrying the injured to hospitals and problems for collection of evidence. 'Nazreen ye wo jaga hy jahan 20 minutes pehlay dhamaka hua' come on, what are you doing on crime scene. Let them gather evidences, you are destroying evidences. If there is another blast then who will be responsible! How many times media has tried to educate people to deal with disaster and calamity! Of course they do, once they are heavily paid for it.. There is a check post, and media is having immunity , they show the card and let go. A person is arrested by police, a media person will come and he will let him free. Why, because media is a pressure group in our country.

A friend of mine, a media representative, was transferred from his Karachi office to Islamabad office because he had to shift his family to Islamabad. Over a dinner, he was not happy. I asked what happened, he said we are not treated well by police and other forces. I asked, do they make illegal reports against you? or bully you ? he said no, they do not let us go freely. I asked how. He said, if there is some incident, they do not let us go inside. At a check post, they do not entertain them well. And if some friend of them is going on a bike (without licence or bike documents) and is stopped by police/traffic people and his bike is confiscated, then police/traffic people do not let him go by call/meeting by a media person. He said Karachi is good for media. They have power there and they can do whatever they wish and whatever they want. This was definition of power of media by that person. . I was just dumbfound to hear this and was unable to say anything ...

v). Pakistan is very corrupt country and its corruption is increasing day by day. Pakistan is an unsafe country and its people are butchered on the name of religion, sect, caste, ethnicity etc. Pakistan is a heaven for terrorists etc. A general view in world for Pakistan is like that. Thanks to media.. . Is Pakistan really bad! Is there no good thing in the country. There are many bright students in country, who are doing wonders in various fields. There is a good number of human resource in country and that can be used effectively. Is this only the responsibility of government or there is some responsibility of media to project bright picture.

A friend was telling an incident. Recently he had a month long trip of South East Asia including Malaysia. There was a drive by Malaysian government against illegal immigrants , these also including Pakistanis. But Pakistani media projected the picture that Pakistani High Commission is doing nothing and its inefficient etc. My friend told that though generally High Commission abroad are not too efficient , yet the Acting High Commissioner Mr. Nadeem A Khan was trying to work hard for the community. The friend also met him, and was told that there are flaws in Malaysian laws which let people from other countries including Bengladesh, India, Pakistan, Iran, Indonesia etc to use help from commission agents and their works are done by greesing palms of Malayisian civil service and politicians... After coming from those countries, comments of my friend were horrific, he said that there is corruption in those countries as well, and Malaysia is an highly rated corrupt country. As per him, Thailand is not a safe country for foreigners. The foreigners rate it high but they are cheated and bullied there a lot.. I was horrified to listen this. I had heard about corruption in USA and many Western countries, but Malaysia! And Thailand, I heard Bangkok is an highly rated tourist destination... . I asked then why Pakistan is considered a corrupt and non-safe countries. He said an important aspect is its projection and media is very important source of projecting bad picture of the country ...

vi). I condemn shooting of Hamid Mir, but also condem the killings of innocent people be they member of any religious group (Shia, Sunni) or ethnicity (Baloch Pashtun) or any institution (Amry, Police, ISI)... State institutions should follow the law but non-state instutions should also not be let loose to do whatever they wish to do. Dont make it a laissez-faire.. And nobody should be allowed to raise fingers on any institution without proof and it should be responsibility of the legal system to determine if somebody is innocent or not. Further, as per my information, an important step for legal action is lodging of FIR and to my surprise the FIR was not lodged by the family nor it contain anything against any state institution. Then why was so hue and cry on the media.....

Thank you.

Regards

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'Thee woh ik shakhs kay tasawar saay - abb woh ranayee khayal kahaan'

hamid mir's incident was really a bad moment and many people condemned they way he deserve. although Hamid has made many disputed comments at many occasions in Pakistan and out of Pakistan as well.
but at the same time the way GEO responded within no time after the incident was very irresponsible and anti state. they named dg isi like a target killer without any prove. if it was their right and was the freedom of expression then why they did not named the killer of Wali Babar although it is known that who is the killer. they are still defending themselves by criticizing armed forces. most importantly, govt. position in overall situation also explains their mind towards welfare of the state.

geo should be banned, and not only banned but there should be other penalties as well.

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“You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough.”

Muhammad T S Awan,

I think you have got this all wrong. Hamid Mir is not the perpetrator, he is one of the victims here. You talk about Freedom of speech and Freedom of Life as if they are related. But, on the contrary, they are two mutually exclusive ideas. You say freedom of speech is somehow connected with killings? Can you explain this? Perhaps I am wrong. However, I am of the opinion that the attack on Hamid Mir and other journalists has nothing to do with SI or Maulana being killed. In fact, they both have common enemies.

Also, you contradict yourself, since the news of the SI being shot and Maulana being killed has been brought to you by Free Media. Had it not been through the effort of the free media, you would still have been in dark about this and many other incidents. Media is a necessary pillar of the nation to keep accountability. Journalists deserve praise and respect as they are putting their lives in line to bring you the news.

The real issue here is that media should not become a Dadagir, bending the rules as they wish and chant extra-judicial allegations against whoever they wish as if they have a monopoly on public opinion. Media, like all institutions, should be driven by logic and reason and not by emotions and rumors.

These are my opinions and you have the right to defer. Respectfully.

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"The unbelievers plotted and God planned, but God is a much better planner" [Surah Al-Imran 3:54]

I do not think that one incidence of violence can justify another. Even if 1000 people were killed that very day this is no excuse for attack on Hamid Mir, similarly neither is this attack an excuse for others.

Attacks on famous people generate more attention among general public, this is natural.

Media exists to protect individuals' liberties including freedom of expression and if freedom of media itself is threatened, that is alarming.

If security establishment is so utterly concerned about its image why don't they address the issues insetad, like kill and dump policy in Balochistan. There is nothing new in these allegations nor is this the first time they have been leveled.

Threatening people, kidnapping them, beating them up; is this the operational procedure ? Ethical standards never bother agencies but at least they should have some operational standards. Every where in the world agencies exercise control but there should be a better way than this. One wonders, which century our agencies are still functioning in?

What public is doing here is blaming the victim. A typical TM attitude of our nation. If there are acid attacks this is fine but if someone makes a documentary on it, she should be condemned. Because as long as we can carry out such attacks without world knowing about it they are 'harmless'. If any institution threatens journalists it is fine, the only problem is them going public.

Image of a country and image of any state organ are not the same . Consider this, every one knew about Gunatanamo and prisoners abuse in Iraq. When American public and American media mounted pressure on govt to come clean on this, the world was not like, 'Only now have we discovered about the abuses and it has been proved once for all that America is the bad guy'. Instead the impression was ' the national conscience is alive, if any state institution commits such acts the nation will hold them responsible or at least American public disapproves it'. Therefore, image of Pakistan is not image of army+ image of ISI + image of media and so on; the whole is more than sum of its parts here.

Right or wrong, true or untrue an opinion was expressed. The institution with grievance should go public as well and complain only if there point of view isn't covered by media. You can not punish people or institutions just because they have a particular point of view. This is basic fundamental right; God damn it!

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"Life is either a daring adventure or nothing."
Helen Keller

i hope u have read the history of pak nd role of armed forces in making pakistan...whenever there was need whether in peace or war armed forces were there in in a blink may it be 48 , 65 71 kargil or ops sentinental....may it be earthquakes , floods making highways defending at the heights of siachen dont u count them as achievements?????? there have been mistakes in the past i don believe there has been 100% performance .....but if pakistan is still there on the map of the world its because force.....look at the history highest GDP , EDUCATION GROWTH , FACILITIES DAMS ROAD INFRASTRUCTURE ETC has been during the era of the dictators , m not a supporter of martial law but facts nd figures proves as it has been always fruitful for our country......but here comes the role of the state to set policies for each nd every institution....there should be harmony among the institutions..... i m in favor of the total inquiry abt hamid mir but on the same lines i condemn the role of GEO in creating negativity on the core issues....the role of GEO is not at all productive... i believe PEMRA should monitor its activities for future

Excellent! The whole thing is articulated too well. The point about the mentality of blaming the victim was spot on.

It's very interesting that the same people who are screaming their lungs about media ethics and regulations (on television and in general) have never so much as remotely insinuated at all the extra-judicial measures of intelligence agencies and to bring them under regulations. No one seemed to bother much when mass graves were discovered in Baluchistan because guess what? RAW conspiracy. Mama Qadeer? Indian agent. Everyone is overflowing to suggest media ethics and ban (because banning things is like our national sport) them but when it comes to regulations about intelligence agencies, just zip your mouth and look sideways.

And somehow they have been tricked into believing that questioning the objectionable measures of secret agency is against "national security" (a meaningless terms which nobody thinks about while throwing around). If this is really so, US must have the weakest national security considering how FBI and CIA have been grilled by the media post-WWII (actually, reports about our agencies also come through their media because our agencies are so efficient they can't even protect their confidential reports).

This is just because of our disdain for anything democratic that infests us like a disease. Azad was right on the spot when he said democracy can never take roots in Pakistan because its people simply don't have that mentality. Over the past 66 years, we have only proved him right.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gypsified Are you presuming that ISI has a cent percent rate of achieving targets? I wouldn't bet too high on an agency that claims it did not know about OBL in its own backyard. And that has not been able to save GHQ and its own headquarters and bases from terrorist attacks.

Atleast unki bike tou kharbh nh hute

You are straining your point against ISI. Without preliminary investigation, one cant demand resignation of its Head. Let the aggrieved formally allege ISI chief in the FIR, we will surely try to muscle its chief out of his job.

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When you try, you risk failure. When you don’t try, you ensure it.