ISLAMABAD/LALAMUSA: Federal Information Minister Qamar Zaman Kaira on Sunday condemned what he called the media trial of the National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO) beneficiaries, saying no private television channel had the right to do so as cases were under trial in courts.
According to a private TV channel, he said: “When an anchorperson was made the managing director of PTV, he saw no faults in President Asif Ali Zardari, but now his programme targets the Presidency.”
Meanwhile, addressing a press conference in Lalamusa, Qamar Zaman Kaira said the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) would honour the verdict of the Supreme Court on the NRO and the charges levelled against its leaders would be contested in courts.
He said the character assassination of the PPP leadership was being done through a media campaign and it would not be tolerated. “The NRO was promulgated during Pervez Musharraf’s regime and PML-N leaders Nawaz Sharif and Shahbaz Sharif also returned to the country as the result of the ordinance,” he said, adding the reinstatement of the judges and the general election were also the outcome of the NRO.
The minister said the NRO had not been promulgated on the demand of the PPP, but was introduced by Pervez Musharraf under the pressure of the international community. He said former prime minister Benazir Bhutto had demanded the quashment of the false cases registered against the PPP leaders and that could not be proved in courts during a long period of 11 years.
He said 8,041 persons had been benefited from the National Reconciliation Ordinance, but why only one person who was the president of Pakistan and co-chairman of the PPP was being criticised.
He said the people who had their loans written off should also be held accountable along with those who had created the Islami Jamhoori Ittehad and received money from an intelligence agency.
He called the approval of National Finance Commission (NFC) award a big achievement of the present government, saying the power shortage would be overcame with the construction of the Basha Dam.
Source: The News
Date:12/22/2009
