{"id":56122,"date":"2023-06-21T22:00:40","date_gmt":"2023-06-21T13:00:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/commentisfree\/2023\/jun\/21\/imran-khan-pakistan-tv-prime-minister-army"},"modified":"2023-06-21T22:00:40","modified_gmt":"2023-06-21T13:00:40","slug":"i-literally-cannot-say-imran-khans-name-on-pakistani-tv-this-madness-has-to-end-hamid-mir","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/?p=56122","title":{"rendered":"I literally cannot say Imran Khan\u2019s name on Pakistani TV \u2013 this madness has to end | Hamid Mir"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Whoever wins in the confrontation between the former prime minister and the army, both sides are to blame for trying to gag criticism<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Hamid Mir is a Pakistani TV news anchor and author<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I am not a big fan of Imran Khan. I have long criticised Pakistan\u2019s former prime minister, but now it is becoming difficult to do so. There is a de facto ban on referring to him in the media, meaning we are no longer allowed to mention his name or show his picture. Pakistani TV channels are not allowed to interview him or air his statements. This is the result of a series of directives issued by the media regulator.<\/p>\n<p>As prime minister, Imran Khan tried to turn Pakistan from a struggling<strong> <\/strong>democracy into an autocracy. His successor, Shehbaz Sharif, appears to be following in his footsteps.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/commentisfree\/2023\/jun\/21\/imran-khan-pakistan-tv-prime-minister-army\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Whoever wins in the confrontation between the former prime minister and the army, both sides are to blame for trying to gag criticismHamid Mir is a Pakistani TV news anchor and authorI am not a big fan of Imran Khan. I have long criticised Pakistan\u2019s f&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2225,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sns_share_botton_hide":"","vkExUnit_sns_title":"","_vk_print_noindex":"","sitemap_hide":"","_veu_custom_css":"","veu_display_promotion_alert":"","vkexunit_cta_each_option":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[359,60,61,42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-56122","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-imran-khan","category-pakistan","category-south-and-central-asia","category-world-news"],"veu_head_title_object":{"title":"","add_site_title":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56122","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2225"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=56122"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56122\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":56123,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56122\/revisions\/56123"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=56122"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=56122"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=56122"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}