KARACHI: The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) will go to court against the arrest of Dr. Shahbaz Gill, a senior PTI leader and former prime minister Imran Khan’s chief of staff, a lawyer for the party said on Tuesday.
Gill was arrested on Tuesday afternoon, a day after he made comments in a TV show that the national media regulator and the government said were “seditious.”
The Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA) had issued a show-cause notice on Monday night to a private TV channel, ARY News, for airing the segment that included Gill’s comments in which he advised army officers not to follow orders of their top command if they were “against the sentiments of the masses.”
Hours after the segment was broadcasted, ARY News executives said the channel had been taken off air across the country. On Tuesday afternoon, the PTI announced Gill’s arrest.
“No option but to go to court,” Faisal Hussain, a lawyer for the PTI, told reporters in Islamabad, saying he could not locate Gill in any major police stations in the capital.
In a tweet, Hussain said he had “physically checked Police stations Margalla, Kohsar, Banni Galla & Secretariat. He isn’t no where.”
“My #demand is to treat the abductee under the law and the constitution.”
According to the First Information Report (FIR) against Gill registered at Islamabad’s Kohsar police station, he has been booked under several sections of the Pakistan Penal Code, including 505, which carries an up to seven-year jail term for statements made with “intent to cause or incite, or which is likely to cause or incite, any officer, soldier, sailor, or airman in the Army, Navy or Air Force of Pakistan to mutiny.”
On Tuesday, PEMRA put out a notification saying the authority had observed a “trend” of anchorpersons and analysts on TV news channels “spreading misinformation and disinformation against the state institutions without any cogent justification.”
PEMRA said such trends were part of a “planned propaganda campaign against the state institutions,” in a veiled reference to the military.
ARY News is widely seen as being partial to ex-premier Imran Khan’s opposition PTI party, with criticism of the Sharif government’s political and economic policies a regular feature of news bulletins and current affairs shows.
But on Tuesday night, the channel distanced itself from Gill’s comments.
“ARY condemns this statement,” an anchor on the channel said, adding that this was the view of the channel’s top management.
In a show-cause notice on Monday, PEMRA had said Gill had made “highly hateful and seditious comments” which amounted to inciting the armed forces to rebel against their leaders.
“Airing of such content on your news channel shows either weak editorial control on the content or the licensee is intentionally indulged in providing its platform to such individual who intent to spread malice and hatred against the state institutions for their vested interests,” the notice to the channel read, saying this was against the country’s constitution.
The regulator directed the chief executive officer of the channel to show cause in writing within three days, explaining why legal action should not be initiated against the channel for violating the law and the constitution.
The channel was still off air as of Wednesday morning.
