Najam Sethi: Geo’s Catch-22? – by Noha Beig
Last night (Tue, 19 April 2011) Najam Sethi’s show, Aapas Ki Baat, on Geo-News went off the air when Sethi was talking about agencies propping up Imran Khan. It returned after almost 10 minutes of ads. Its host said that there was a technical fault. This is the second time a ‘technical fault’ has occurred on the show. The first time it occurred a month ago when Sethi was taking SC to task.
Nevertheless, the little investigation that I could pull off in this respect suggests that it wasn’t really a tech fault but some background tussle within Geo between supposedly pro-Sethi and anti-Sethi groups.
It is also a fact that some powerful groups in Jang/Geo that are aligned with some shady powers – including some well known Geo anchors and The News reporters – have shown ‘concern’ and anger (to the management) at the way Sethi is conducting his show.
Most of them are also cringing from the fact that Sethi constantly alludes to them when he talks about that section of the media that has become pawns of the agencies and certain radical right-wing forces.
It is now to be seen for how long will Mir Ibrahim (CEO of Geo) be able to withstand the pressure he is facing of putting Sethi on an otherwise populist right wing channel, and also, for how long is Geo willing to continue this experiment of putting a liberal journalist on the platform of mainstream TV amidst all the hue and cry from the usual right-wing ranters.
It might not be that easy to pull the plug on Sethi, though, because Sethi’s show, in spite the fact that it airs after 11pm, is now reported to be showing good ratings in the past month or so.
is Sethi about to become Geo’s Catch-22?
………
Related article: Geo TV gets censored…by Geo TV: Najam Sethi’s show and the out of bound topics – by Maula Bux Thadani
Dig a bit further, and we might come to know that Mirs of Geo/Jang have authorized another Mir (Hamid) to monitor and moderate Najam Sethi’ talkshow.
Aapas Ki Baat Najam Sethi Kay Sath – 19 April 2011
Programme: Aapas Ki Baat Najam Sethi Kay Sath
Source: GEO
http://pkinside.com/geo-news/aapas-ki-baat-najam-sethi-kay-sath-19-april-2011/
Sethi saab ki chiriya ke par Hamid Mir / Ansar Abbasi ne kaat diyay?
Sethi’s analysis are traeat to watch. His Raymonmd Davis saga came out to be true at last. Wath his show before the final hearing of the Raymond Daavis Issue.
Sethi knows many things in advance and often tows the establishment’s line. It is historically proven.
http://criticalppp.com/archives/40420
Sethi’s show is clearly standing out and i agree with the author when he/she says that the biggest threat to Sethi’s show is not external, but internal. I sure hope he is able cut through all the carp being used against him by the likes of Ansar Abbasi, Hamid Mir and Kamran Khan.
My sources tell me that Sethi tows the lines of the political side whilst challenging the right wingers in Jang/Geo. He is already facing a lot of difficulty with the group. If one remembers, in the 1990’s it was just Kamran Khan and other Karachi based “Junkies” that were calling the shots. Later the Ansar Abbasi/Hamid Mir gangs sprung up and the power moved to Islamabad. Now with Sethi sitting in Lahore, it is an uneasy triangle in the group.
So Mr Najam Sethi is facing internal attacks and censorship at Geo(Badmash Channel).
Mir Shakil ur Rehman owner of the Jang group curtailing free speech and blocking criticism on the army and Judiciary, by doing this he is in fact serving his own interests and ignoring larger peoples interests. He blocked Sethi because his position on the drone attacks is based on facts and not on emotions, different from Jang groups favorite Imran Khan, and he is presenting right stats. Furthermore, he is criticizing sou motto specialist Chief justice for so called judicial activism and usurping parliament’s powers.
Watch Aapas Ki Baat – 18 April 2011
http://pkpolitics.com/2011/04/19/aapas-ki-baat-18-april-2011/
Never seen technical fault in any other Geo show.technical fault only comes in Najam sethi show. funny.
Expose’ on GEO TV Intellectual Dishonesty. Keep in mind that Kamran Khan and Jang Group brazenly supported 12 Oct 1999 Coup and Najam Sethi was also one of the supporter of 12 Oct 1999 Coup
Saeed Mehdi Exposes Kamran Khan’s 11 Years Old Story Part 5 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPvoMFc9hhM
Saeed Mehdi Exposes Kamran Khan’s 11 Years Old Story Part 4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BzJEJ97uSyE
Saeed Mehdi Exposes Kamran Khan’s 11 Years Old Story Part 3 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=djHzj9Ys6Lc
Saeed Mehdi Exposes Kamran Khan’s 11 Years Old Story Part 2 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jo-BCyW9fZs
Saeed Mehdi Exposes Kamran Khan’s 11 Years Old Story Part 1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Id_Y1a4PfXo
Expose’ on GEO TV Intellectual Dishonesty. Keep in mind that Kamran Khan and Jang Group brazenly supported 12 Oct 1999 Coup and Najam Sethi was also one of the supporter of 12 Oct 1999 Coup
General (Retd) Ziauddin Butt exposing 11 Year Old lies of Kamran Khan – Part 1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5KpBC9k0a0w
General (Retd) Ziauddin Butt exposing 11 Year Old lies of Kamran Khan – Part 2 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R6c72JVCl60&feature=related
General Retd Ziauddin Butt exposing 11 Year Old lies of Kamran Khan Part 3 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s17v_LQqvZk&feature=related
General Retd Ziauddin Butt exposing 11 Year Old lies of Kamran Khan Part 4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j84Su1waiXY&feature=related
Here is that “Crucial” Column “Kamran Khan” wrote in support of Martial Law
Ambitious Ziauddin steered Nawaz to political disaster News Intelligence Unit By Kamran Khan [AS QUOTED IN Fears of a Military Coup in Pakistan Chowk P Room October 12, 1999 http://www.chowk.com/site/articles/index.php?id=4644
http://www.chowk.com/interacts/4644/1/0/16
ISLAMABAD: Within half an hour of his surreptitious climb to the post of the Chief of Army Staff on Tuesday afternoon, the former Inter-Services Intelligence chief, General Khawaja Ziauddin knew that the Army he was supposed to lead was not prepared to accept his command. The News Intelligence Unit (NIU) has gathered that all of Ziauddin`s phone calls to the Corps Commanders and the Chief of General Staff — placed from the Prime Minister`s House in Islamabad on Tuesday — drew a blank, a reaction that almost instantly drew down the curtains on former prime minister Nawaz Sharif`s second term in office. Debriefing sessions with detained aides of the Nawaz Sharif administration by security officials here have disclosed that the former ISI chief-led operation to stage an in-house coup in the Army was driven by his personal ambitions ignoring the actual situation on the ground. “Even a layman in Pakistan is aware that any operation of this sort can never be completed without the active support of the troops and commanders posted in the cities of Islamabad and Rawalpindi,“ an Army official commented. “It was foolish of the former prime minister not to be aware that his nominee for the Army chief didn`t have the key support of the 10 Corps and more specifically the 111 brigade,“ he added. It has now become clear that Lt. Gen. Ziauddin was the architect of the secret operation that envisioned the official announcement of his promotion to the post of COAS once Gen Pervez Musharraf boarded PIA Flight PK 805 in Colombo for a journey that severed his contact with the GHQ for a good 200 minutes. It was also Lt. Gen. Ziauddin who, along with the former principal secretary Saeed Mehdi, had suggested to Nawaz Sharif that General Pervez Musharraf`s plane must not be allowed to land at Karachi so that he could be arrested at any other less busy airports in Sindh.
Sources said that Ziauddin had assured Sharif that he would gain the full command of the Army much before the landing of General Pervez Musharraf`s plane at Karachi airport, a dream that suddenly transformed itself into Sharif and Ziauddin`s worst nightmare. Officials here believe that because of his family and, more particularly, his father`s old ties with Khawaja Ziauddin`s family, Sharif always wanted to appoint him to the coveted post of the COAS, but he couldn`t do that since he had ignored a senior-most three star general as General Jehangir Karamat`s replacement. Several close aides to Sharif had often conceded in the past that Gen Kuli Khan Khattak was ignored because Sharif was not comfortable with a Pathan general.
Ziauddin, an officer from the Army`s Corps of Engineers, was one course junior to Gen. Ali Kuli Khan and Gen. Pervez Musharraf at the Pakistan Military Academy, but even before Karamat`s dramatic exit from the Army, Ziauddin had told his friends about the likelihood of his replacing Gen. Jehangir Karamat. Sources said that General Karamat had posted him as the Corps Commander, Gujranwala in response to a personal request from Sharif, who wanted to give him a fair chance at the time of Karamat`s retirement. Those who had close access to Sharif always contended that his decision to appoint Gen Musharraf was a stopgap arrangement between Gen. Karamat`s abrupt resignation and Ziauddin`s eventual appointment as the COAS. Ziauddin`s appointment as the ISI chief, minutes after Musharraf`s posting as the COAS, spoke volumes of Sharif`s bent of mind at the time. With the knowledge that doubts deliberately created about Musharraf`s tenure as the COAS would further deteriorate worsening relations between the Army and the former prime minister, Ziauddin using his position as the ISI chief nonetheless invented an intriguing conspiracy theory on the Kargil crisis and helped fuel misinformation that the Army leadership got Sharif trapped by launching the Kargil operation.
During the Kargil crisis, Gen. Ziauddin`s exclusive briefing to the former prime minister almost always contradicted the GHQ`s version. “He was responsible for planting the seeds of intrigue on the Kargil issue in Sharif`s mind,“ according to a reliable official source. In his rash drive to convince Sharif that Musharraf`s removal as the COAS would ease tension with the Army, Ziauddin is believed to have also encouraged the former Intelligence Bureau chief Colonel (retd) Iqbal Niazi, to invent a variety of Army-backed threatening scenarios for Sharif, who apparently had an unlimited appetite for stories that painted a highly negative picture of Musharraf and the corps commanders considered close to the COAS. Khawaja Ziauddin`s desperation to please Nawaz Sharif became evident on the first day of his appointment as the ISI chief when he readily confirmed a police-doctored version about the culprits allegedly involved in the ghastly murder of Hakim Mohammad Said. On Ziauddin`s report, submitted without any independent verification, Sharif got an excuse to knock out the democratic set-up in Sindh, an act that later emerged as part of a well-engineered plot to make way for the installation of an exclusive PML-run unelected administration in Sindh. An independent Army probe later discovered that the Sindh Police`s version of the Hakim Said case, with a stamp of ISI confirmation from Gen. Ziauddin, was nothing but “a pack of lies.“ Neither Sharif nor Ziauddin, however, ever acknowledged the blunder.
In another desperate attempt to please the former prime minister, Ziauddin ordered the illegal detention of Najam Sethi, the editor Friday Times, for more than two weeks. Despite the Army`s blunt refusal to initiate sedition or treason charges against Sethi, Ziauddin obliged Sharif and Saifur Rahman by keeping Sethi locked up for about 20 days. Sethi had been handed to Ziauddin`s ISI after being abducted by IB goons from his Lahore residence. Sources said Ziauddin agreed to hold Sethi in illegal detention in response to a single phone call from Saifur Rahman, who later also made Sharif speak to him on the subject. Reliable sources said that Ziauddin was also behind severe criticism of the Kargil crisis by at least two corps commanders, who later met Sharif in Ziauddin`s presence. These meetings were never reported to the COAS, who later reacted by removing both corps commanders from their posts. For Sharif, sources said, Ziauddin`s mission was to divide the corps commanders on ethnic and professional lines and to create an anti-Musharraf lobby amongst the corps commanders. “Since his appointment as the DG ISI, Ziauddin was playing a dangerous game that pitched his boss against the Army,“ observed a senior official. “His operation ultimately turned out to be hara kari (suicide).“
Justice (R) Dr. Nasim Hasan Shah & Judicial Murder of Bhutto (GEO TV APR 2011) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQ6Hu6p9RsQ&feature=channel_video_title
I find no difference between abbas ather and najam sethi, both are boot lickers of PPP, Sethi has connection with america’s agencies, whenever he says something about foreign policty, thats not analysis thats news which comes from his “foreigner friends” and ofcourse he’s against SC because his master (who awarded him medal few days back for his best services for government) does’nt like SC
@Ali Hassan
Wow, anyone who is against the mindless right wingers is a PPP boot licker? Anyone who challenges the prevalent mindset is a PPP Boot licker? If that is the case then everyone else is a PML-N a** licker!
The term boot lickers is confined to those who get inspiration from the Boot Wallas.
PPP’s are Taboot wallas, and it is not a thing to be licked, shoulders can be provided instead and the current lot of macho journalists not have the courage to do that.
@Ali Hassan
you said that Sethi is “against SC because his master (who awarded him medal few days back for his best services for government) does’nt like SC”
But the Dajjal in the SC too was awarded a medal by his masters for his best services to the establishment. Right?
http://www.law.harvard.edu/news/spotlight/ils/chaudhry.html
I can feel how the usual Kamran Khan and Ansar Abbasi fans cringe and get ulcers every time Sethi opens his mouth.
Ironically, it is Sethi, a liberal, who is going to save whatever little respect there is left in Geo.
to ap logon ko blind deaf abdul hameed dogar pasand tha.. kamal hai jo humari party k faisle ankhein band kar k kar de wo mujahid.. agar khilaf kare to dajjal
@Ahmed khan,
Abdul hameed dogar was cj for a period of 1 year under the ppp. Can u pls tell me one judgement he gave That gave the ppp an advantage?
Najam Sethi to Mir Ibrahim Rahman:
This Op-Ed, appearing in The News of April 24, 2011 should have been titled “Jang Group vs Jang Group”.
Poverty of philosophy
Najam Sethi
Across the length and breadth of Pakistan, amongst journalists, politicians, generals and even judges, there is a poverty of philosophy that is crippling the development of a stable state and responsible society. From the personal to the political, from the ridiculous to the sublime, this poverty manifests itself everyday in reckless outbursts of remarks, statements and comments that obfuscate issues instead of clarifying them. Consider.
Some well-known journalists have been predicting the end of the Zardari regime for over a year now by regularly giving D-Day deadlines. But President Asif Ali Zardari continues to defy their hollow predictions, prompting Javed Hashmi to wisecrack that a PhD in politics may be required to fathom his brand of politics. Considering how very consistently wrong they have proven to be, one may be forgiven for wondering whether it is lack of intelligence or scarcity of credible sources that lies at the root of their helplessness and rage. Or is it plain wishful thinking and personal vendettas that are masquerading as serious front-page political analyses?
There is even less justification for them to run down fellow journalists who don’t subscribe to their predictions, unless it is that green eyed monster called jealousy. To say that Zardari will not be booted out by such or such a date for various reasons is not to say that he shouldn’t be booted out, but to assess the scientific likelihood of that happening without attributing any value judgment of a good or bad outcome to it. But those editors, reporters and columnists who have been predicting Zardari’s end want it to happen so desperately that they are ready to sacrifice their credibility at the altar of their mission. This is politics, not journalism.
Much the same thing happened during General Pervez Musharraf’s last year in office. Sections of the media and civil society were so desperate to kick him out – albeit for the right reasons – that they were passionately intolerant of those among them who were inclined to shake their heads cold-bloodedly and say it wasn’t going to happen so soon. The lawyers’ movement in its heyday also demonstrated similar tendencies in the same sections of society between those who ardently wished the movement to be a revolutionary transformation to turn everything upside down and those who analysed it as a significant but non-revolutionary political transition to greater democracy. Surely, passion shouldn’t prevail over reason, or prejudice over logic; nor should one’s credibility be flogged at the altar of patriotism (these days it is synonymous with anti-Americanism), that classic last refuge of scoundrels.
If to err is to be a journalist, politicians may claim even less credibility by the same yardstick. Mr Raza Hayat Heraj has floated a bill in the national assembly that aims to reduce the fundamental rights of certain categories of citizens. He says that Pakistanis with dual nationalities (Pak-American or Pak-Brit) should not be eligible for public office in Pakistan because their oath of loyalty to their country is divided. This is a matter of fact, hence it is eminently reasonable to make this demand to change the law. But then Mr Heraj succumbs to cheap populism when he demands that those with financial interests outside Pakistan should also be debarred from public office for the same reason.
If he had asked for a legal ban on holding financial interests abroad, he would have been consistent at least in asking for targeting law-breakers from being excluded from public office. But to ask Pakistanis who have paid due taxes in Pakistan or in their foreign country of residence on incomes earned at home or abroad respectively to give up their fundamental rights is morally and legally wrong. The essence of free market economies is free capital movements. You cannot implore Pakistanis resident or working abroad to remit their disposable taxed incomes to Pakistan while restricting Pakistanis from repatriating similarly taxed incomes abroad in search of greater profitability and security. This would amount to punishing law-abiders like the ill-advised freeze on, and enforced conversion of, foreign currency deposits inside Pakistan after the nuclear tests in 1998.
Mr Heraj’s bill is also poorly drafted: it refers to the income and wealth of people and their spouses and children, without sufficiently clarifying the core distinction between dependent spouses and children and non-dependent ones, regardless of the stakes they hold in the common property or wealth in contention. This is a reasonable critique. But it has apparently drawn Mr Heraj’s ire so much that he has lashed out personally at the messenger – when you can’t argue with someone’s logic, call him an American agent and clinch the argument – rather than debating or clarifying the message logically and reasonably. This would suggest a cheap shot at popularity rather than serious concern about the credibility and efficiency of parliamentarians or “public servants”.
An example of the sublime without sufficient humility is also at hand. The chief justice of our country has recently lectured soldiers on the value and significance of the oath they take to defend and uphold the Constitution. Earlier, his message to bureaucrats and civil servants was along the same lines: don’t obey illegal orders from the executive. These belated lectures are to be roundly applauded, especially since many soldiers in general and coup-making generals in particular tend to think of the Constitution as a “scrap of paper” which can be torn up when they think the “interests” of the country are at stake. But the constitution is a social contract between the rulers and the ruled and embodies the interests of the nation, state and country above anything else.
The same day that the CJP was lecturing potentially errant soldiers, the chief justice of India was elaborating the “canons of judicial ethics” and the doctrine of law that governs the relationship between the elected and sovereign parliament and the unelected and independent judiciary in any democratic political system. Justice Kapadia cautioned judges against over-reach in the guise of activism. He urged them not to ignore the doctrine of the separation of powers between the executive and judiciary as enshrined in the constitution. He said judges should not make policy or try to run administrations. He also said that judicial activism that is not grounded in any textual commitment to the constitution, unlike cases of human rights and life and personal liberty, raises questions of the accountability of judges. He concluded by remarking that judges should not sit as a super-legislative body to weigh the wisdom of legislation. “We should practise what we preach,” he urged his judicial colleagues.
There is a poverty of philosophy when the army, judiciary, media and parliament neglect human development and spend scarce resources on non-productive sectors at the cost of an educated, informed, globally integrated population. This is what happens when one or the other organs of the state whip up passions and paranoia to maintain their narrow interests. They do so at the cost of the larger good. This is how we end up with a brutalised national mind; this is how mediocrity comes to reign supreme in every sphere of national life.
The writer is Jang Group/Geo adviser on political affairs.
see agri tax video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWfVS6L6ucE