ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Electronic Media Regularity Authority (PEMRA) on Monday directed news channels to ensure that no content was aired by them against the armed forces and the judiciary. 

The development comes a day after the Pakistani military took a “strong exception” to views expressed by a few politicians and journalists, and asked them not to drag the armed forces and their leadership into politics. 

Of late, Pakistan’s powerful military and the judiciary have faced criticism, mostly from supporters of former prime minister Imran Khan's Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party on social media and other video-based platforms. 

In the days following Khan's ouster in a no-trust vote, anti-army and anti-judiciary hashtags remained top trends on Twitter. The campaign drew a sharp response from the army’s top brass, while the civilian-led Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) also launched a crackdown to quell it.  

Khan and his supporters have openly expressed disappointment that the army and its top brass did not block opposition moves to oust his government. 

"It has been observed that few satellite TV channels are airing content which tantamounts to casting aspersions against state institutions i.e. armed forces and judiciary," PEMRA said in a statement. 

"Airing of such content is in violation of the directives issued by the authority, provisions of PEMRA Electronic Media (Programmes and Advertisement) Code of Conduct 2015 and the principles laid down by the superior courts." 

The regulator said a person, who was issued a license under the PEMRA Ordinance 2002 to run a news channel, had to follow the codes for programmes and advertisements, and appoint an in-house monitoring committee to ensure their compliance. 

The regulator said the licensee would have to ensure that any content casting aspersions against the judiciary or armed forces was not aires, while programmes on sub-judice matters could be aired in an "informative manner" and "handled objectively," provided they were not biased against the findings of a court, tribunal or any other judicial forum. 

PEMRA also asked all channels to have an effective time-delay mechanism in place and set up impartial editorial boards to ensure their platform wasn't used for contemptuous remarks against state institutions. 

The regulator warned of legal action under relevant sections of the PEMRA Ordinance and PEMRA (Amendment) Act 2007 in case of violations.