UAE denies reports of coercing Pak TV channel

The authorities in the UAE on Friday denied coercing Pakistan’s Dubai-based private Geo TV network to close down certain programmes...

The authorities in the UAE on Friday denied coercing Pakistan’s Dubai-based private Geo TV network to close down certain programmes because it “threatened” the Gulf nation’s relation with “a friendly country”.

Officials of the United Arab Emirates’ (UAE) National Media Council, the media watchdog, said on Friday that the UAE Government has not issued any warning to the Pakistani TV channel, saying changes in programming in an internal matter of the organisation.

Geo TV channel staffers said that they have not received any letter from the Dubai Media City authorities to shut down operations. “We are operating as usual,” one staffer said.

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Earlier, Geo TV president Imran Aslam said the Dubai authorities had informed him last night that the network would lose its licence if Capital Talk, a show hosted by Hamid Mir and Meray Mutabiq and anchored by Shahid Masood, were not taken off the air. Officials at Dubai Media City, where the Geo network is based, said these programmes “threatened the UAE’s relations with a friendly country”.

The News daily, owned by the Jang group that also operates the Geo network, reported that there was “immense pressure” from Pakistani authorities on the Dubai administration to stop the transmission.

Pakistani Information Minister Sherry Rehman said that the Pakistan People’s Party-led Government had not asked the UAE to act against Geo TV.

However, earlier reports said Geo TV had been ordered to quit Dubai within 48 hours and that the UAE authorities had cancelled visas of all its staffers and asked them to leave.

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All channels of the Geo network were shut down for over two months by the Dubai authorities during last year’s emergency in Pakistan.