KARACHI: Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) has challenged the ban imposed by the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA) on the live coverage of its chairman Imran Khan’s speeches in the Sindh and Lahore high courts.
Ali Zaidi, president of the party’s Sindh chapter, filed on Wednesday a constitutional petition in the SHC, wherein he argued that the PEMRA’s notification was illegal.
“The ban imposed on the live coverage of Imran Khan’s speeches amounts to a ban on freedom of speech,” he said, and added: “Therefore, it is prayed to the court to not only declare the notification illegal but also suspend it until and unless the fate of this petition is decided.”
The ban on Khan’s speeches was also challenged in the Lahore High Court (LHC).
Justice Anwaar Hussain of the LHC asked the petitioner, Muhammad Khan Madni, to give arguments on the admissibility of the petition on the next date of the hearing.
The judge asked him to satisfy the court whether freedom of expression was the right of the speaker only or also of the listener.
In his petition, Madni, an office bearer of PTI, who had contested the general elections of 2013 on the party’s ticket for NA-119, made the federal government and the PEMRA respondents, and said Khan was not only the PTI chairman but also the country’s most popular leader by virtue of votes he had received in the last two general elections as well as in the recently held by-elections.
“And in the present situation, he is addressing large public gatherings,” he said, and added that both local and foreign media had been covering his rallies live.
But PEMRA, he regretted, in a blatant disregard for freedom of speech imposed a ban on the live coverage of PTI chairman’s speeches. “Therefore, it is prayed to the LHC to declare the Authority’s notification, dated August 20, 2022, of the imposition of ban null and void,” Madni said.
