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Now, channels hit the street

ISLAMABAD: The anchor was in place, adjusting his ear-piece. Most of his guests had arrived. Only the setting was somewhat different.

“Welcome viewers to Capital Talk, from a footpath in Islamabad,” said Hamid Mir, one of the most well-known faces of Pakistani television, as the cameras started to roll.

Mr. Mir, whose popular programme aired daily on Geo TV from its Islamabad studios before the closure of its operations in Dubai along with that of ARY One allegedly under pressure from President Pervez Musharraf, thumbed a nose at the government on Wednesday by bringing his show on to the street, with a live audience of journalists, civil society representatives, and passers-by to boot.

Gagged after the November 3 emergency, and shocked by the closure of the two television channels, journalists in Pakistan are protesting everyday. Karachi police released 150 journalists that it arrested in the city on Tuesday, but 45 more were arrested on Wednesday from Peshawar and Quetta on yet another day of country-wide protests against the restrictions on the media.

They are also finding new ways to give expression to their anger against the government.

Wednesday’s edition of Captial Talk was shot on the footpath outside Geo’s offices in the capital, a stone’s throw from Gen. Musharraf’s Aiwan-e-Sadr’s office. An armoured car stood at the ready and police massed in a ground nearby as the show got under way in defiant mood.

The guests were the show’s regulars of the last few months: politicians, civil society representatives, lawyers. The subject was, as usual, the “current political situation.” Except this time, they were grilled not just by Mr. Mir, but also by the audience that had gathered to watch, on their stand over the Emergency and what their next strategy would be and whether they would boycott the January 8 election.

Frequently, they interrupted the programme with anti-Musharraf and pro-democracy and freedom slogans. Mr. Mir said Geo would distribute the programme to television-stations world-wide.

Talat Hussain, the anchor of another of Pakistan’s most watched programmes, Live with Talat on Aaj Television, is to host his show on the footpath outside Press Club on Thursday, where the capital’s journalistas have been holding daily protests.

The television station is back on air, but only after it agreed to axe Mr. Hussain’s cutting-edge current affairs programme along with another, Bolta Pakistan.

Another weekly comedy called Four-Man Show that aired earlier this week for the first time after the ban on the television was lifted was all about how the TV station had lost none of its top programmes.

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