By Muhammad Najeeb
Islamabad(IANS) : Most news channels in Pakistan continue to work despite their viewership reducing to less than five percent after the government ordered cable operators to take them off the air.
Notwithstanding the government diktat against news channels – national and international – after emergency was imposed Saturday, the need for information is driving people to buy dish antennas, read more newspapers and news on the Internet.
Moreover, the 65 million mobile phones in the country are acting as a major source of information.
Many news organisations have started sending information through mobile phone messages while the circulation of daily newspapers has gone up.
“Our circulation in the last two days has increased by more than 20 percent,” said a circulation official of a mainstream Urdu-language newspaper.
Leading Pakistani news channels like Geo, AAJ, DawnNews and some others have started transmission through websites. These channels can be viewed on their respective websites while some just give audio feeds.
Due to heavy traffic, Geo has launched a lighter version of its website and continues to transmit.
“The government is also contemplating looking into websites that give material against the state,” afternoon newspaper Al-Akhbar quoted an unnamed official as saying.
“I am happy to say that people in newsrooms of all media organisations are working with more enthusiasm,” Huma Ali Shah, president of the Pakistan Federation of Union of Journalists, told IANS.
He said that he was in touch with journalists throughout the country. Though at least seven media personnel had been arrested, they were released after protests.
Wearing a black band on his arm, he said: “We’ll not backtrack and will fight against these restrictions… Let them do whatever they like but we’ll continue to provide information to the people of Pakistan through all possible sources.”
He said the media was being pushed to the wall but the situation would end up creating problems for military rulers.
Several international organisations had protested to the government over the restrictions and had sent messages “encouraging our efforts”, Shah said.
“I salute all news persons who are working in this difficult situation,” he added emotionally.