ISLAMABAD: Ammad Yousaf, a top official of a private news channel, was picked up from his Karachi residence in the early hours of Wednesday after his organization was issued a show-cause notice for airing a segment that the national media regulator and the government have called “seditious.”
ARY News invited a senior Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) leader, Dr. Shahbaz Gill, to comment on a story during a broadcast on Monday in which he advised military personnel not to follow orders of their top officials if they were “against the sentiments of the masses.”
The Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA) issued a show-cause notice to the channel and took it off air across the country. On Tuesday, Gill was arrested for his comments on charges of inciting a revolt within the Pakistani armed forces before being produced in a local court in Islamabad on Wednesday. He was subsequently remanded in police custody for two days.
“@ARYNEWSOFFICIAL news head @AmmadYousaf picked up by unknown people from his house,” ARY CEO Salman Iqbal wrote on the social media platform.
“Ever since ARY was established, we have one ideology and one goal and that is our great motherland, Pakistan,” the CEO said in another post. We still follow the same ideology. ARY has always defended the armed forces against internal and external enemies.”
According to a news report published on ATY’s website, “police officers along with plain-clothed persons forcibly entered” Yousaf’s residence.
“The raiding team diverted the CCTV cameras of Yousaf’s house, and jumped into the house from the top of the main entrance,” it added.
An ARY anchor, Arshad Sharif, called the raid to arrest Yousaf a “violation of fundamental human rights & trampling [of] press freedoms.” He also requested international rights organizations to take notice of the development.
The incident was also condemned by a senior PTI leader, Shireen Mazari, in a Twitter post.
“[ARY News] senior [vice president] Ammad Yusuf picked up from his residence early hours of morning,” she said. “Already [ARY] anchors like [Arshad Sharif are] under serious life threat. Shameful how those who shout [about] media freedom [are] now silent simply [because] they dislike [ARY]! Such selectivity creates space for tyrants.”
In its show-cause notice to ARY News on Monday night, PEMRA said Gill had made “highly hateful and seditious comments” which amounted to inciting the armed forces to rebel against their leaders.
“Airing of such content on your news channel shows either weak editorial control on the content or the licensee is intentionally indulged in providing its platform to such individual who intent to spread malice and hatred against the state institutions for their vested interests,” the notice to the channel read, saying this was against the country’s constitution.
Speaking to reporters outside the courthouse on Wednesday, Gill said his statement “contains nothing of which I should be ashamed.”
“This is the statement of a patriot. I haven’t tried to incite anyone. I only talked about officers in bureaucracy who are doing wrong,” the politician said.
Gill’s lawyer, Faisal Hussain, opposed the prosecution’s appeal for physical remand, but the court handed him over to the police for two days. The PTI leader will now be produced in the court on Friday again.
“We will be going to the high court to get the case quashed,” Hussain told reporters.
