Author: PTI
Publication: Rediff on Net
Date: October 13, 2004
URL: http://www.rediff.com/news/2004/oct/13pak1.htm
The Pakistan government has warned
the national print and electronic media against "glorifying terrorists
as heroes" and threatened to take action under anti-terrorism laws if they
failed to fall in line.
"Do not present terrorists as heroes,
we warn you. Terrorists want to live by the media. Don't play into their
hands," Pakistan Information Minister Sheikh Rashid said in Peshwar on
Tuesday after presiding over a provincial information ministers' conference.
"Today, we have just warned. If
they [the media] does not pay heed to the warning then we'll see what we
can do," the minister was quoted as saying by the Daily Times newspaper.
A statement issued after the ministers'
meeting said the Anti-Terrorism Amendment Ordinance of 2001 will be used
if the media did not stop glorifying terrorists.
It said the meeting took serious
note of attempts by certain private TV channels "to praise terrorists and
criminals by showing their interviews."
Rashid said the warning to the media
is not aimed at curbing its freedom.
Pro-Al Qaeda tribal leader Ahmad
Mehsod, who has owned responsibility for abducting two Chinese engineers,
has been making appearances before the media in the tribal Waziristan agency
and telephoning newspersons in Peshwar by satellite phones to outline his
demands.
Mehsod was released from US detention
centre in Guantanamo Bay a few months ago.
Asked why the government in the
past "garlanded" terrorists, Rashid said, "It was a wrong decision."
