NBSA Rejects Zee’s Appeal, Asks it to Apologise to Gauhar Raza

The channel had allegedly called Raza a member of the “Afzal Premi Gang” in a video back in March 2016.

File image of poet and filmmaker Gauhar Raza.

(Photo Courtesy:Youtube/@Anhad India)

The News Broadcasting Standards Authority (NBSA) rejected an appeal made by Zee News against an order asking it to apologise for calling Gauhar Raza, a poet, scientist and filmmaker, a member of the “Afzal Premi Gang” in a video back in March 2016.

Scroll.in reports that the NBSA’s order specified that the channel is required to run a public apology to Raza at 9 pm on 16 February, alongside a deposit of Rs 1 lakh within a week.

According to lawyer Vrinda Grover, the channel had been asked to carry out the apology before as well, but at the time it had chosen to go into an appeal, the report adds.

“The appeal stands rejected,” Grover said in a Facebook post.

Raza had recited a few poems about theatre activist Safdar Hashmi and the 2010 murder of two journalists in Iraq, at an annual Shankar Shad (Indo-Pak) event in Delhi in March 2016.

The channel, however, had shown the clip in a show titled “Afzal Premi Gang ka Mushaira” and added pictures from the controversial protests that broke out in Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) in February of the same year, reports Scroll.

The channel, says the report, has been asked to run this apology word-by-word:

Zee New regrets the taglines used and views expressed during the broadcast of the programme/news report under the caption “Afzal Premi Gang Ka Mushaira” from 9 March 2016 to 12 March 2016, reporting upon the poetry recital by Prof Gauhar Raza on 3 March 2016, at the annual Shankar Shad (Indo-Pak) Mushaira in New Delhi. Zee News also regrets the description of Prof Gauhar Raza and the attendees/participants at the event as “Afzal Premi Gang”.

According to The National Herald, the channel has also been directed to air the message in Hindi and to remove the controversial video of the programme from all their sites and platforms and to confirm its removal to NBSA.

This is a strong order. It gives hope to those who may be wronged by channels in the future and who have been wronged by news channels in the past. The order has created a tradition, but Zee is also trying to create a tradition which is subversion of the order.

Gauhar Raza, as reported by <i>The National Herald</i>

In terms of whether he believed the channel would actually issue the public apology, Raza told The National Herald: “I have no idea. They appealed against the first order to delay the apology. I hope they will comply. It will be good for the Indian media.”

Back when Zee News had been slapped with the order, it had argued that the aim behind telecasting the event was to show that there is “no restraint on the freedom of speech and expression” in the country, says Scroll.

(With inputs from Scroll and The National Herald)