ISLAMABAD  –Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (Pemra) has organised a consultative meeting to be held at its headquarters on Monday to set parameters to prescribe the term ‘obscenity’ on electronic media.
The meeting is set to engage all stakeholders including veteran religious leaders, PBA, Cable Association, writers, columnists, journalists, academicians, media experts, advertisers and contents producers, in consultation process to deliberate upon description of term ‘obscenity’ along with parameters vis-à-vis the socio-cultural and religious values.
The Pemra chairman said that, though, no specific definition of the obscenity or vulgarity existed anywhere in the Constitution of Pakistan or Pakistan Penal Code or even in the Pemra laws, however, Pemra believes that these terminologies need to be defined to guide electronic media that what is acceptable or unacceptable to Pakistani society.
“For this purpose, Pemra in its comprehensive Draft Content Regulations of February 2012 had inscribed some definitions of obscene content which were derived from international metaphors. The draft regulations were posted on Pemra website and were also massively publicised to fetch comments from public and stakeholders. The revised draft of said regulations is already uploaded on Pemra website for comments of public and stakeholders,” he said.
The consultative meeting is likely to be attended by Justice (R) Wajihuddin Ahmed, Qazi Hussain Ahmed (Ex-ameer Jamat-i-Islami), Ansar Abbassi, Muhammad Hussain Mehanti (Ameer Jamat-i-Islami, Karachi), Lt-Gen (R) Abdul Qayyum, Oriya Maqbool Jan, Javed Jabbar, Mehdi Hassan, Mazhar Abbass, Fauzia Saeed (HR Activist) and representatives of Pakistan Broadcasters Association (PBA), Cable Operators Association of Pakistan (CAP), Pakistan Advertisers Society (PAS), United Producers Association and Pemra officials.