Dubai considering reopening of Geo, ARYOne
DUBAI: Media authorities in Dubai said Saturday they were considering whether to allow two private Pakistani news channels to resume broadcasting after shutting them down between the night of Friday and Saturday. “We are in contact with them to see if there is a possibility to (allow them to) resume” broadcasting, Amina Rustamani, head of Dubai’s media watchdog was quoted by a foreign news agency.
The two networks, Geo and ARYOne, said on Saturday that they were shut down the night before amid pressure from Pakistan military ruler Pervez Musharraf. Geo and ARYOne had been blacked out on cable in Pakistan since November 3, when Musharraf imposed a state of emergency, but had still been available on satellite and the Internet until Friday night when they were fully closed. Both channels said the Islamabad government had been pushing them to stop showing their political talk-shows.
Rustamani said the channels had long been operating out of Dubai Media City, a free zone where scores of regional and international news organizations are based. She said it was necessary to explain to the two channels the policy of the United Arab Emirates, of which Dubai is part, and guidelines applying to media operating out of the free zone, but she declined to go into details of the criteria they would have to abide by in order to resume broadcasting.
She said it was necessary to explain to the two channels the policy of the United Arab Emirates, of which Dubai is part, and guidelines applying to media operating out of the free zone.-SANA
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