Newspapers warned against reproducing website material

By Iqbal Khattak

PESHAWAR: The government will move against all publications under the newly-promulgated Defamation Law if they reproduce “defamatory” stories of a website.

Information Ministry sources told Daily Times on Saturday that the government had taken note of some periodicals reproducing reports placed on the Washington-based South Asia Tribune (SAT) website. Shaheen Sehbai, former editor of The News, who shifted to the US after developing differences with Gen Pervez Musharraf, edits the tribune that often carries “investigative” stories to expose the military government.

The ministry sources said any SAT material reproduced by the print media “amounts to defamation” unless “substantiated” - a reference to verification from the official spokesman.

Meanwhile, a two-column government ad in an Islamabad-based English daily on Saturday warned the print media of action under the “provisions of the law against defamation” if what it called “defamatory” and “libelous material” was reproduced from the website. The ad neither named the tribune nor its editor Shaheen Sehbai, but read: “Some newspapers and periodicals in Pakistan are reproducing stories and reports placed on a website originating from outside the country. These reports are concoctions targeted to malign the government of Pakistan and its senior functionaries. The contents are defamatory, slanderous and libellous.”

The ad claimed the author “is a self-exiled Pakistani with an agenda of his own.” It went on to say that the source of his inspiration to launch a defamatory campaign against the government and its functionaries “is known to media circles in Pakistan.” “I think this is a direct threat to press freedom,” a senior journalist said against the backdrop of the government move to charge under the defamation all those law who reproduce materials from the website.

Home | National