PML-N to oppose media bill, says Javed Latif

ISLAMABAD: Chairman of the National Assembly’s Standing Committee on Information and Broadcasting Mian Javed Latif Tuesday expressed his resolve to oppose the PTI government’s proposed Media Development Authority Bill (PMDA).

Announcing that the opposition will not let the bill pass through the Standing Committee, he said it was not an issue of media alone but of the whole nation because freedom of expression cannot be banned by just pressing a single button.

He expressed these views at ‘Meet the Press” jointly organised by the National Press Club (NPC) and Rawalpindi-Islamabad Union of Journalists (RIUJ) here at the NPC on Tuesday. Mian Javed Latif said the PTI government was opposing the 18th Amendment because it had empowered the provinces.

“If the government intends to control everything, including media, courts and elections, tragedies like East Pakistan would continue to happen,” he said. He vowed that the PMLN would ensure protecting all fundamental rights of the public, as it had always believed in the supremacy of the Constitution.

“Even we are ready to die for the national cause and issues,” he said. He said the government had double standards in accepting the facts and always portrayed its viewpoint as patriotism and flaws identified by the opposition as treason.

He said the problem is not fake news but they want to control everything and if the government is really sincere about legislation, it should take all the stakeholders into confidence. He said PTI government is pursuing the policy of divide and rule in all spheres of life, as they have come to fulfil their own agenda. Javed Latif was of the view that martial laws and dictators had not done as much damage as the present government had done to country.