FOR MANY IN PAKISTAN, A TELEVISION SHOW GOES TOO FAR

[Images of moral vigilantes prowling the streets have an ominous resonance in Pakistan, where many still recall the dark days of the Islamist dictator Gen. Mohammad Zia ul-Haq in the 1980s, when the police could demand to see a couple’s nikkahnama — wedding papers — under threat of imprisonment.]

By Declan Walsh

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — One morning last week, television viewers in Pakistan were treated to a darkly comic sight: a posse of middle-class women roaming through a public park in Karachi, on the hunt for dating couples engaged in “immoral” behavior.

Panting breathlessly and trailed by a cameraman, the group of about 15 women chased after — sometimes at jogging pace — girls and boys sitting quietly on benches overlooking the Arabian Sea or strolling under the trees. The women peppered them with questions: What were they doing? Did their parents know? Were they engaged?

Some couples reacted with alarm, and tried to scuttle away. A few gave awkward answers. One couple claimed to be married. The show’s host, Maya Khan, 31, demanded to see proof. “So where is your marriage certificate?” she asked sternly.

This hourlong spectacle, broadcast live on Samaa TV on Jan. 17, set off a furious reaction in parts of Pakistan. Outrage sprang from the Internet and percolated into the national newspapers, where writers slammed Ms. Khan’s tactics as a “witch hunt.”

“Vigil-aunties,” read one headline, referring to the South Asian term “aunty” for older, bossy and often judgmental women.

Now, the protests are headed to court. On Friday, four local nongovernment organizations will file a civil suit against Samaa TV in Pakistan’s Supreme Court, hoping to galvanize the country’s top judges into action.

“Journalists don’t have the right to become moral police,” said Adnan Rehmat of Intermedia, a media development organization that is among the petitioners. “We need to draw a line.”

Images of moral vigilantes prowling the streets have an ominous resonance in Pakistan, where many still recall the dark days of the Islamist dictator Gen. Mohammad Zia ul-Haq in the 1980s, when the police could demand to see a couple’s nikkahnama — wedding papers — under threat of imprisonment.

But the strong reaction is also drawn from a pressing contemporary worry: that the budding television media, seen as a force for democracy and greater social freedom for much of the past decade, have lost their way as part of a cutthroat battle for ratings.

“It really aggravates me that the media is using their power to intrude and invade our privacy, often with no good reason,” said Mehreen Kasana, a 22-year-old American-educated blogger from Lahore, who wrote a widely circulated protest against the Samaa TV show.

The controversy has rekindled a debate about the direction of Pakistan’s TV industry. Since liberalization in 2000, the sector has exploded from one channel — the state-controlled one — to more than 80 today, 37 of which carry national or local current affairs.

The media revolution has transformed social and political boundaries: in 2007, feisty coverage played a central role in pushing Pervez Musharraf toward the exit; in recent weeks it helped guard against a possible military coup.

But television is also a lucrative business controlled by powerful, largely unaccountable tycoons. Last year Pakistan’s television stations had advertising revenues of more than $200 million, according to Aurora, an industry journal — 28 percent more than the previous year.

Amid stiff competition for viewers, channels have relied on populist measures — rowdy political talks shows and, in recent times, vigilante-style “investigative” shows modeled on programs in neighboring India.

Some have a noble objective: holding to account crooked public servants, police officers and even fellow journalists. But others have veered into territory that could be described as Pakistan’s answer to Jerry Springer — voyeuristic, mawkish and intrusive.

In recent months, one reporter screamed at a man accused of child rape as he awaited trial outside a courthouse; another hectored a man said to be a self-confessed necrophile inside a jail cell; and a TV reporter “raided” a gathering of whisky drinkers, even though alcohol flows freely at many media parties.

Abbas Nasir, a former head of Dawn News television, said he was “nauseated” by some coverage.

“Hosts are under pressure to bring in ratings, and there is carte blanche to do the most bizarre things,” he said.

Another critic derided such reporters as “pussycat vigilantes” because they avoided challenging rich or powerful Pakistanis, whose Western-style lifestyles go unexamined.

“They only go after the people they know will not bite back,” said Nadeem Farooq Paracha, a culture writer.

Ms. Khan’s show touched a raw nerve because it combined simmering concern over media ethics with wider fears about society’s conservative tilt. Even General Zia’s son was appalled. In answer to a question on Twitter, Ijaz ul-Haq, a politician from Punjab Province, said he was “still in shock by what I’ve heard about her show.”

In a telephone interview on Tuesday, Ms. Khan rejected her critics, calling them “an elite class that don’t even watch my show,” and said the show merely intended to highlight the dangers that unaccompanied youths face in Karachi.

She also denied that there was anything unusual about asking couples for their wedding certificate — even though she does not carry one. All of “Pakistan knows me and my wedding pictures,” she said. “So I don’t have to.”

But on Wednesday, Samaa TV issued a formal apology for her show, followed by a short clip of Ms. Khan, sitting on a bed, offering an apology of sorts. “I never intended to make you teary-eyed or hurt you,” she said.

The furor has renewed long-standing demands for media regulation. With the state-run Pakistan Media Regulatory Authority seen as ineffective, the organizations approaching the Supreme Court on Friday hope the judiciary can help. “We need to hold the media to account,” Mr. Rehmat said.

But others argue that involving the courts, with their history of heavy-handed interventions, could open the door to state licensing of free speech. “It could backfire,” said Beena Sarwar, a journalist who helped rally protests against Ms. Khan’s show. “The media needs to do this themselves.”

Amid the polemic, there is one bright spot: the use of Twitter and Facebook to stoke debate has shown how, even as social space contracts in a turbulent society, the virtual space is opening up new possibilities.

But so far, the use of social media has been largely confined to the country’s English-speaking minority. It was striking how little attention Ms. Khan’s show received in the Urdu media, which is read or watched by the vast majority of Pakistanis.

“My real worry is that Pakistan is moving rightwards, and this time the face won’t have a beard,” said Mr. Nasir, the former head of Dawn News television. “And before people know it, they won’t know what’s hit them.”

@  The New York Times

IRAN SAYS IT MAY CUT OFF ITS OIL EXPORTS TO EUROPE

[Just one day earlier, Mr. Ahmadinejad was forced to reverse himself and approve a sharp rise in bank deposit interest rates as part of an effort to stop a plunge in the value of Iran’s currency, the rial, which accelerated after the European Union announced the oil embargo on Monday. Many Iranians have been seeking to sell rials for gold and foreign currencies, fearful that their own money is becoming worthless.]

By Rick Gladstone and J. David Goodman

Rodrigo Buendia/Agence France-Presse 

— Getty Images

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad spoke to

 reporters  during a visit to Quito earlier this month.

Iran struck a combative tone Thursday in its confrontation with the West over the nuclear issue, threatening to terminate oil exports to European nations even before their embargo takes effect this summer. But its president also acknowledged that the regimen of punitive sanctions imposed on Iran, which he had long dismissed as insignificant, were hurting ordinary Iranians.

“It is a big lie that they are not targeting the people,” President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said of the sanctions in a speech reported by Iran’s official Islamic Republic News Agency. Directing his ire at the Western powers that have imposed the sanctions, which have constricted Iran’s ability to sell oil and conduct international financial transactions, he said, “You are the real enemy of people and are putting pressure on them.”

Political analysts said Mr. Ahmadinejad’s acknowledgment of sanction pain, in an otherwise bellicose speech, was a departure from the government depiction of Iran as an immune fortress. They said it may reflect the harsh reality that the corrosive effect of sanctions on Iran’s currency, exports and employment could no longer be ignored by Iranian politicians facing their audience at home.

Just one day earlier, Mr. Ahmadinejad was forced to reverse himself and approve a sharp rise in bank deposit interest rates as part of an effort to stop a plunge in the value of Iran’s currency, the rial, which accelerated after the European Union announced the oil embargo on Monday. Many Iranians have been seeking to sell rials for gold and foreign currencies, fearful that their own money is becoming worthless.

“Iran’s official narrative has long been that sanctions have a negligible impact, and in fact have been helpful in making the country economically self-sufficient,” said Karim Sadjadpour, an Iran expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington. “While it may be tough to suddenly pivot from that and say that sanctions are the cause of Iran’s economic malaise, it’s no longer possible to dismiss the impact of sanctions when everyone in Iran has been affected by the country’s ongoing currency crisis.”

The uranium enrichment program at the heart of the sanctions has become the most urgent point of contention between Iran and the West, which has long suspected that the Iranians are working to build a nuclear weapon despite their repeated denials. Iran has said it is enriching uranium for civilian energy and medical purposes. Israel, which considers Iran its most dangerous adversary, has hinted at the possibility of a pre-emptive military strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities.

In his speech, at an industrial project ceremony in southeast Iran, Mr. Ahmadinejad expressed his country’s willingness to re-engage with the Western powers in negotiations over its uranium enrichment program, as his foreign minister, Ali Akbar Salehi, had said last week.

But Mr. Ahmadinejad also accused them of insincerity in their own offers to resume the talks, which were suspended a year ago.

“I admonish you to pave the right track and do not make any excuses while the time is ripe for negotiations,” Mr. Ahmadinejad said. “Be friendly to Iranians because it is no longer a time of making noises and bullying others in the world.”

A more belligerent warning came from Iran’s Parliament, where lawmakers were working on a plan to stop Iran’s oil exports to Europe in retaliation for the embargo, which is to begin July 1.

“Europe will burn in the fire of Iran’s oil wells,” Nasser Soudani, a member of the Parliament’s energy committee, said in remarks carried by the Fars News Agency.

Under their plan, he said, “All European countries that made Iran the target of their sanctions will not be able to buy even one drop of oil from Iran.”

Mr. Soudani further predicted that the Europeans, who are heavily reliant on imported oil, would have no choice but to renounce the embargo because “abandoning Iran’s oil would mean the extinguishing of the candles of their economic lives.”

His remarks may have been intended to rattle the global oil market, where the price of crude has sometimes jumped in response to previous threats by Iran, the world’s fourth-largest oil exporter.

But crude prices, which have hovered around the $100-per-barrel range, were little changed on Thursday, partly reflecting what oil traders said was ample evidence that other producers — notably Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Libya — could compensate for any absence of Iranian oil.

Steven Erlanger contributed reporting from Paris.


@ The New York Times