11/7/2022 0 Comments Draconian![]() ![]() The measures implemented in Italy and under consideration the U.S. How China locked down tens of millions of people “The disregard for civil liberties and human rights that the government has demonstrated in its quarantine and censorship activities are inseparable from the policies and actions of the government that contributed to the outbreak in the first place.” “No other nation (western or otherwise) can or should seek to replicate China’s actions,” Thomas Bollyky, the director of the Global Health Program at the Washington D.C.-based Council on Foreign Relations, tells TIME via email. Now, as the rest of the world faces a growing pandemic, policy makers are eyeing the Chinese model to determine what worked-and whether the most aggressive measures are feasible, or even desirable. Andrew Cuomo has ordered a “containment zone” in the New York City suburb of New Rochelle, where all public gathering places are closed and the National Guard has been deployed to help deliver food and sterilize public areas.īut others question the cost of China’s containment, and are asking if it’s worth turning to draconian measures that indiscriminately infringe on citizens’ civil liberties and cripple their livelihoods. However, the government should know that the media in this country still has the spine and the integrity to stand its ground.And officials elsewhere are already attempting similar measures-the whole of Italy has been placed under lockdown, and on Thursday, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte announced that all land, sea and air transport in and out of the Manila metropolitan area, home to 13 million people, will be cut until mid-April. Now an attempt is underway to replace these blatantly illegal tactics by legislation that ultimately has the same objective - to bludgeon the community into acquiescence. Journalists over the last few years have endured indirect censorship and outright violence for simply trying to do their job. Draconian plus#Along with licences, there will be NOCs to be renewed periodically - a sword hanging over their heads, plus an added financial burden at a time when the industry is already suffering crippling losses. Draconian tv#Much as it applies to TV channels at present, under the proposed law, the licensing regime would also cover print and digital platforms. The Supreme Court alone will have the jurisdiction to question the legality of any step taken under the ordinance. Anyone aggrieved by its decisions can appeal to a tribunal - again set up by the federal government. Sanctions include up to three years in prison and a fine extending to Rs25m, or both. It can for a host of loosely defined reasons, and without issuing a “show-cause notice and affording opportunity of hearing…” prohibit any person, print media, electronic media or digital media service operator from operating. The PMDA can without notice order the seizure of equipment at a television station or the sealing of a media outlet’s premises. Repealing existing media-related laws, it would set up PMDA, an all-powerful regulatory body to exercise control over print, electronic and digital media, whose members would be appointed by the president on the federal government’s advice. “This has no place in a democratically elected dispensation,” reads their joint statement.Ĭlause after clause in the proposed law is illustrative of the authoritarian mindset that underlies it. Media organisations yesterday unanimously rejected the proposed legislation, terming it unconstitutional and an extension of Gen Ayub Khan’s infamous Press and Publications Ordinance 1963. It should in fact be a matter of shame for a government claiming to have come to power through the ballot, to envisage a media law more draconian than what a military dictator could have dreamt up. Thus, not only is it antithetical to the constitutionally protected right to freedom of expression but it also violates the right to receive information. ![]() Read: The state’s attempts to control the media are blatant and blunt In other words, this naked attempt to control the narrative will eviscerate the very rationale for the fourth estate, which is to act as a check on excesses of power and function as a watchdog for the public interest. It will, if enacted, erase all critical voices from print, electronic and digital platforms through a system of coercive censorship that will allow only a pliant media to survive. MAKE no mistake: the proposed Pakistan Media Development Authority Ordinance - an apparent draft of which is doing the rounds on social media - is a declaration of war against journalists. ![]()
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