{"id":20800,"date":"2016-10-25T13:41:19","date_gmt":"2016-10-25T13:41:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.acnmalta.org\/?p=18400"},"modified":"2016-10-25T13:41:19","modified_gmt":"2016-10-25T13:41:19","slug":"pakistan-all-christian-tv-networks-closed-down-acn-malta","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/2016\/10\/25\/pakistan-all-christian-tv-networks-closed-down-acn-malta\/","title":{"rendered":"PAKISTAN &#8211; All Christian TV networks closed down -ACN Malta"},"content":{"rendered":"<style type=\"text\/css\"><\/style><h2><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><strong>PAKISTAN &#8211;\u00a0<\/strong><strong>All <\/strong><strong>Christian TV networks <\/strong><strong>closed<\/strong> <strong>down <\/strong><\/span><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><strong>for<\/strong><strong> lack of permits<\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>11 Christian television channels in Pakistan broadcasting in Urdu were ordered to stop transmitting, leaving the country&#8217;s 2.8 million Christians with no public media presence for the first time in nearly two decades. The Pakistani Media Regulatory Authority said they were illegal&#8221; and did not have a permit to broadcast. It instructed the Regional Directors General to stop the illegal transmission of TV channels in their respective regions immediately.<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-18404\" src=\"http:\/\/www.acnmalta.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Catholic-TV-was-a-TV-station-overseen-by-Fr-Morris-Jalal-known-as-TV-Priest-300x201.jpg\" alt=\"catholic-tv-was-a-tv-station-overseen-by-fr-morris-jalal-known-as-tv-priest\" width=\"300\" height=\"201\" \/><\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s true that we didn\u2019t have permission for the radio,\u201d Alessandro Monteduro, president of the Italian branch of Aid to the Church in Need which has been supporting a specific project on Catholic TV, the television network of the Archdiocese of Lahore. However, he said the network had been following the proper legal procedures, but that the procedures had been changed and that they were unaware of the changes.<\/p>\n<p>In Monteduro\u2019s opinion, the absence of the permit was used as an excuse to prevent the Christian message from being heard in Pakistani society.\u00a0 He was sceptical about the possibility of re-opening the network, saying that \u201cwithout a collective indignation I don\u2019t think we will be given the possibility of reopening.\u201d<br \/> He hoped it might be possible for the network to start again from zero, with the proper legal permits.<\/p>\n<p>Father Morris Jalal, who founded the now-illegal Catholic TV, condemned the ban and urged the national community to speak out against what he referred to as a &#8220;sweeping attack on religious freedom&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;As citizens, Christians have the right to practice their religion, but if they block you, it means not all citizens are equal,&#8221; he said . &#8220;We must protest this decision, and we hope the West does it as well.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Father Mushtaq Anjum also claimed the closure which made &#8220;the proclamation of the good news illegal,&#8221; was a &#8220;discriminatory law that affects non-Muslims&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>However, Fr Robert McCulloch, an Australian priest and member of the Missionary Society of St. Columban who has lived in Pakistan for 34 years, urged caution, saying \u201cit\u2019s important not to overreact\u201d to the situation.<\/p>\n<p> Although he said the closing of the networks was regrettable, Fr. McCulloch noted that \u201cthese are not big TV channels \u2026 they\u2019re small diocesan networks or even parish networks that are being set up, maybe in a particular locality&#8230;. they\u2019re not national.\u201d<\/p>\n<p> He thinks that the decision was not taken out of direct malice toward Christians. The Pakistani government may be cracking down more on telecommunications organizations without proper permits because of intensifying conflict with India over the disputed territory of Kashmir. Most pro-Christian channels in Pakistan are based abroad because PEMRA does not release licenses for religious broadcasting and only allows the airing of Christian messages for Christmas and Easter.<\/p>\n<p> Given the situation, Fr Robert McCulloch noted that \u201cthings are rather tense there at the present time.\u201d As Lahore is within 100 miles of Kashmir, \u201canything concerning telecommunications, anything like that is being heavily monitored.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Fr McCulloch emphasized that although Christians in Pakistan certainly faced \u201cintense discrimination,\u201d which at times includes violence, the situation is \u201cnot one of persecution.\u201d<br \/> \u201cOur hospitals are open, we\u2019ve got a major seminary in Karachi for the last four years where there are 84 seminarians\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Pakistan could not be compared to other that in other countries, such as North Korea, China, Saudia Arabia, Iran, or Afghanistan. \u201cPeople have got to be careful in terms of what words they use in describing the situation there. Discrimination certainly, but persecution not.\u201d<br \/> <strong><em><br \/> <\/em><\/strong><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><strong><em>ACN Malta<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>PAKISTAN &#8211;\u00a0All Christian TV networks closed down for lack of permits \u00a0 11 Christian television channels in Pakistan broadcasting in Urdu were ordered to stop transmitting, leaving the country&#8217;s 2.8 million Christians with no public media presence for the first time in nearly two decades. The Pakistani Media Regulatory Authority said they were illegal&#8221; and&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":18402,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20800","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-e-newsletters","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v24.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>PAKISTAN - All Christian TV networks closed down -ACN Malta - Aid to the Church in Need (Malta)<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/2016\/10\/25\/pakistan-all-christian-tv-networks-closed-down-acn-malta\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"PAKISTAN - All Christian TV networks closed down -ACN Malta - Aid to the Church in Need (Malta)\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"PAKISTAN &#8211;\u00a0All Christian TV networks closed down for lack of permits \u00a0 11 Christian television channels in Pakistan broadcasting in Urdu were ordered to stop transmitting, leaving the country&#8217;s 2.8 million Christians with no public media presence for the first time in nearly two decades. 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