From: nobody@REPLAY.COM (Anonymous)
Date: Wed, 21 Jan 1998 01:51:40 +0800
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	ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) - In a fresh move to promote Islamic
culture, Pakistan's TV censors have been busy.
	They have slashed footage of pop musicians sporting long hair and
jeans. Male and female co-hosts of local television programs are no more.
	Scores of commercials and programs have ended up on the cutting
room floor since the launching recently of a campaign by Prime Minister
Nawaz Sharif's government to impose its regimen of Islamic decency on
television.
	For example, a toothpaste advertisement was considered unseemly
because it showed a toothy young couple grinning at each other
affectionately. Gone are the soap and shampoo commercials that showed
"female glamour related to their bathing."
	Government officials say the campaign reflects Pakistan's
traditional Muslim culture.
	The new policies are aimed at promoting Pakistan's rich heritage
and Islamic traditions, not at trampling "acceptable" artistic expression,
said Saddiq-ul Farooq, prime minister's spokesman. "The line of
demarcation is that the animal instincts should not be aroused."
	But advertisers and artists say the new rules more reflect a slide
toward Islamic fundamentalism that stifles freedom of expression - and
costs them money.
	The campaign began in October after Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif
reportedly complained that lascivious Western culture was polluting
state-run Pakistan Television (PTV).
	PTV's censors took Sharif's gripe to heart.
	The censor board announced a new policy that banned footage of
women "giving indecent and vulgar looks which are considered contrary to
Islamic values." It also banned women from appearing in "jeans and
seductive dress."
	Then a letter went out to advertisers saying commercials which
depict "an alien locale and dresses not in harmony with our national
culture will not be sanctioned for telecast."
	In conservative Pakistan, where sex outside marriage is a crime
and many women don't venture outside the home without a veil, local film
and television is traditionally conservative.
	Even before the newest campaign, Pakistani censors were
discriminating, slicing footage of nudity, sexual intercourse, gratuitous
violence and foul language from imported films and television programs.
	But critics say the new rules have gone too far.
	Advertisers have been warned against "exhibiting of body contours"
and advised to avoid "unnecessary featuring of females."
	One of the first victims of the new rules was a soap commercial
that featured a head and shoulder shot of a well-known Pakistani actress
washing her face.
	Saying the footage was too seductive, censor board officials said
it left to the imagination whether the actress was wearing any clothes,
said Kareem Ramaal, an executive with Asiatic Advertising Ltd., the agency
that produced the commercial.
	"It's quite a perverted attitude," he said.
	Ramaal and other advertising executives say the new rules could
mean big losses for Pakistan's burgeoning advertising industry.
	Asiatic's clients have spent as much as $10 million producing some
of the commercials that have been forced off the air.
	"That's just money down the drain," he said.
	If advertisers pull out, it could mean millions of dollars in
losses for the cash-strapped state-run channel.
	PTV is Pakistan's only channel, but satellite dishes are making
headway in this nation of 140 million people, offering dozens of channels
over which the government has no control.
	A 1996 Gallup poll found that 58 percent of adults, about 38
million people, watch television. Seven percent said they had access to a
satellite dish.
	"Culture and religious faith mean different things to different
people ... the government should not even attempt to define them," the
independent English-language newspaper The News wrote in an editorial.
	Pakistani singer, Salman Ahmed believes that the government
worries that Western-influenced pop music and culture could foment
discontent among the country's young.
	Ahmed said it wasn't his long hair and jeans that got his rock
band, Junoon, banned from television, but rather government unhappiness
over its hits, which speak of Pakistan's social ills and government
corruption.
	"I think they are scared of us," Ahmed said. "The young generation
listens to us and follows us - especially the social songs."
	PTV officials dismissed Ahmed's accusation, saying there was a
difference between modernism and Westernization.