Govt to amend PEMRA laws in consultation with stakeholders: Marriyum.

ISLAMABAD -- Minister for Information and Broadcasting Marriyum Aurangzeb on Wednesday said the government was planning to amend the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory (PEMRA) laws in consultation with all the stakeholders.

"We are bringing amendments in the PEMRA rules and talks are being held with the Joint Action Committee on proposed amendments,' she said during a meeting of the Senate's Standing Committee on Information and Broadcasting chaired by Senator Faisal Javed Khan.

The minister said during the previous regime, the payment of journalists' salaries were not linked with the issuance of advertisements to media houses. Even the payment of dues in that regard to those media outlets, which delayed the payment of salaries to their staff, were not stopped.

She assured that now a law was being enacted regarding media workers' salaries and contracts.

Marriyum said former information minister Chaudhry Fawad had changed the

category of channels during his tenure as minister. In 2019, she added, after the Supreme Court's decision, the process to rate channels was started.

Prior to this classification, she said, the Press Information Department had a transparent system for advertisements, under which the channels were rated according to their programmes and time. The channels were given advertisements in A, B and C categories, she added.

Marriyum said transparency in advertisements' distribution had been ensured by the present regime and no discrimination was being done against any channel.

She said during the last Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz tenure, advertisements were also issued regarding the 70 birth anniversary of Pakistan.

The minister said the government fully believed in freedom of the media and it was taking steps to safeguard it. "In the past, journalists were abducted and tortured but no such incident has taken place in our tenure."

What happened to the journalists, media workers and media houses in the last four years were a dark chapter in the history of journalism, she maintained. In the past, restrictions were imposed on the freedom of expression, with kidnapping and torturing of the journalists were order of the day, she added.

The minister said she stood with the journalists like Absar Alam, Asad Toor and Irfan Siddiqui, who were persecuted by the previous regime.

An independent media, she said, held a government accountable.

She said all the journalists, including those against whom the first information reports (FIRs)...