Mir Shakil not Indian, US agent: UK court

• All ARY channels in UK shut for lying as Ofcom revokes licences

• Rs400m total cost including damages, legal expenditure and success fees imposed in one of the harshest punishments on any media

• We don’t have any proofs, ARY admits in British court after failing to prove charges of taking money from foreign countries, agencies

• Court rejects small file containing unauthenticated social media reports presented by ARY

• Defeat of conspiracy hatched under a grand plan to make Jang-Geo Editor-in-Chief Mir Shakil-ur-Rahman (MSR) controversial by leveling false and concocted allegations with ill-intention in the name of patriotism and religion

• Jang-Geo Editor-in-Chief MSR gets spectacular victory as he wins all the cases in UK court

• In historic judgment, court orders none of the allegations against MSR can be repeated

• Mian Mansha, Jehangir Siddiqui and MSR have filed cases against ARY in Pakistan and Britain

• As many as 18 cases filed by MSR in Pakistan but none decided so far

LONDON: UK media regulator Ofcom has revoked the licences of all the six ARY Network channels in the UK three weeks after ARY went into liquidation and its Chief Operating Officer in the UK applied for bankruptcy after losing a £3 million libel case to Geo and Jang Group Editor-in-Chief Mir Shakil-ur-Rahman (MSR) at the London High Court two months ago.

This is one of the harshest punishments for the media in the history of the UK. The action has been taken against ARY for not implementing orders in 24 pleas for payment of damages. The decision is a defeat of the grand plan to make MSR controversial through false allegations and misuse of patriotism and religion. The London High Court has actually announced a historic victory for MSR in this case. ARY has been proved a liar and it has admitted in court that it leveled allegations of getting funds from foreign powers by Jang and Geo in reaction to an alleged attack on it.

In its defence, ARY said all of its transmissions in question were merely opinions and it is not confident that these are true or not. The court rejected the arguments of ARY. It needs to be mentioned here that ARY leveled allegations of sacrilege 389 times against MSR on the basis of a morning show but did not mention a single time that courts in Gilgit-Baltistan and Balochistan have acquitted MSR in the said case.

The court observed that ARY will never withdraw its defamatory allegations though it has no proof to substantiate them, adding that even a huge fine will also make no difference. It added that repute of MSR has been restored. It said that MSR has rejected outright allegations of treason and made it clear that he is a patriot.

ARY had nothing but a small file of content from some unauthentic social media website to prove its stance. On the other hand, MSR presented 30 kgs of documents to reject these allegations and gave reply to the points that were not even present in the small file ARY put up to the court.

Giving verdict in favour of MSR, the court noted that attitude of ARY during the proceedings was aggressive, unbecoming and unacceptable. ARY Chief Operating Officer Fayyaz Ghafoor refused to stand in the dock to answer questions and defend the allegations. On the contrary, a high court judge said that MSR was prepared to deal with the case firmly and was ready to defend the truth and face counter questions in the court. ARY raised the allegations that Jang and Geo launched Aman Ki Asha initiative after taking money from India to pursue the Indian agenda but failed to present any proof in this regard. The judge also mentioned that ARY exaggerated the incidents that followed the attack on Hamid Mir and used provocative language against MSR to cause him physical harm on the issue of morning show Utho Jago Pakistan. The judge said that MSR is a patriot and could not think of harming his beloved country but unfortunately he was called a traitor. He said the penalty that has been announced for ARY is enough to convince analysts that the allegations were false and caused pain to MSR.

Ofcom announced its decision on Thursday that ARY’s licences have been revoked and three of ARY channels in the UK — ARY Digital, ARY News and ARY QTV — were removed from Sky and Virgin Media on Monday.

The closure of ARY came after the London High Court ordered ARY to pay £185,000 in libel damages to MSR for leveling defamatory allegations against him in 24 programmes which the court found libelous and baseless. Judge Justice Sir Eady also asked ARY to pay legal fees to Mr Rahman’s lawyers as well as success fee. The judge made the decision after ARY accepted that it had no evidence to support its allegations and that it didn’t defend the allegations at all. The total cost to ARY in full was around 40 crore Rupees – around £3 million. The total cost of ARY’s bankruptcy is £5 million.

Mr Rahman brought the defamation case against ARY in the UK after the channel, through its Khara Sach programme, started a highly dangerous and vindictive campaign in November 2014, using Islam and patriotism as a tool. The channel repeatedly alleged that MSR was an agent of Indian intelligence agency RAW, Israel’s Mossad and American CIA. ARY had alleged that MSR was guilty of treason, hatching conspiracy with Indian intelligence and other agencies; disloyalty to Pakistan; blasphemy; offered to broadcast American intelligence agency’s choice of television programmes in return for money, thereby deceiving the Pakistani people. The channel alleged that MSR was involved in attempting to destroy evidence at the crime scene of the attack on Hamid Mir and ridiculing teachings of Islam. ARY specifically stressed that Geo and Jang were traitors and defamed Islam, inciting violence against MSR alleging that he was a blasphemer and had defamed Islam.

In the UK territory, there were 11,000 story tickers and 113 Khara Sach programmes in which MSR was called traitor 224 times, and blasphemer 1,880 times. MSR took the case to the London High Court stressing that he was being victimised and that all allegations against him were unfounded, false, wrong and had no foundation in truth. Justice Sir Haddon Cove found in November 2015 that all ARY broadcasts were defamatory and each and every word had defamed MSR. The trial at the London High Court happened on 23 October 2016 and lasted for seven days. ARY told the court that it had no evidence to back up its allegations and accepted that it had made the allegations without any evidence. Following the trial the judge, decided in favour of MSR on all counts, making history.

Justice Sir Eady said that there is no doubt that MSR was singled out for persistent abuse and ridicule for a year and he was regularly taunted by the presence of an empty chair, the purpose of which was to suggest that he was afraid of coming and defending himself against any of the allegations being made. The judge said that it was clear that the ARY holds MSR in contempt.

He said that ARY brought no evidence as in fact their lawyer did not even suggest that such an allegation was true. The judge said that in the court ARY didn’t defend its allegation that MSR took money from abroad. He said no evidence was presented, nor did ARY agree in the court that these allegations were true. The judge said it was clear that ARY attempted to fan hatred against MSR. He said that ARY put nothing forward to sustain its allegations.

The judge also asked ARY to air the summary judgement and tell its viewers that MSR had won. ARY aired the summary judgement on 23rd December 2016. The court has also given an injunction, which means that none of the allegations against MSR can be repeated and anyone doing so will be charged for contempt of court.

The judge asked ARY to produce its bank statements before the court to prove that it can pay up but ARY told the court that it will pay to Mr Rahman. A month later, on 5 January 2016, ARY’s Chief Operating Officer in the UK, Fayaz Ghafoor, applied for bankruptcy and then a few days later ARY went into liquidation, stating that it cannot pay.

ARY was hoping that it will set up a new company and start anew but Mir Shakil-ur-Rahman’s lawyers contacted the Ofcom and a formal investigation was initiated. The media regulator confirmed three weeks ago that it had opened investigations into ARY following huge concerns about regulations and content have been raised.

Ofcom said in a statement on Thursday afternoon that it has revoked all the six licences held by ARY Network Limited, which is in liquidation. The reason for Ofcom’s decision is that ARY Network had ceased to provide the licensed services and that Ofcom was satisfied it was appropriate to revoke the licences. Ofcom’s decision came after Justice Sir Eady found in a landmark judgement, issued on 2nd December 2016, that ARY had defamed Mr Rahman for nearly two years and made libelous, unfounded and baseless allegations against him on its UK network.

On 27th January 2017, Ofcom notified the ARY Network that it was minded to revoke the licences, subject to their representations, on the basis that the company had ceased to provide all six of the services. The ARY Network had ceased trading on 31st December 2016 and had been placed into voluntary liquidation on 12th January 2017. Ofcom was concerned that despite the liquidation of the company, programmes were still being broadcast on three of the licensed services (ARY Digital, ARY QTV and ARY News). Ofcom noted that the three remaining services (ARY World News, QTV – Islamic Education Channel and ARY Entertainment) were no longer broadcasting at all.

Following the Ofcom’s letter of 27th January, the liquidator for ARY Network provided both written and oral representations to Ofcom. These confirmed that ARY Network was no longer providing the services and that the liquidator had been investigating the matter. In its oral representations, the liquidator explained that he believed that the services that were still on air were being provided by a third party. The liquidator also explained his role in maximising the value of the assets in the company and that he was seeking Ofcom’s permission to vary the licences to rename the channels and to begin broadcasting new content, with the intention of then selling the EPG slots on which the channels were available.

Ofcom added, “Having given careful consideration to the comments made in both the written and oral representations of the liquidator, Ofcom was satisfied that ARY Network had ceased to provide all six of its licensed services and, in particular, that it did not have general control of those services within the meaning of section 362(2) of the Communications Act 2003.”

Ofcom concluded: “The broadcasting regulatory framework relies on Ofcom being able to identify who is providing the licensed service at all times and to be able to hold its broadcast licensees accountable to the terms and conditions of their licences. Having regard to these functions, particularly in relation to authorising the provision of broadcasting services and regulating the content of those services, Ofcom was satisfied that it was appropriate to serve a notice on the ARY Network revoking the licences. On this basis, Ofcom issued and served a notice on the ARY Network on 1 February 2017 under Section 238(4) of the Communications Act 2003 revoking all six of its licences with immediate effect.”

Its pertinent to mention here that Mian Mansha of MCB, Jahangir Siddiqui of JS Bank, Nobel Prize winner Malala Yousufzai’s father Ziauddin Yousufzai have also filed defamation cases against ARY in the UK. MCB has adopted that ARY is blackmailing it through false news. These complaints are under investigation.

As many as 18 cases have been filed by MSR in Pakistan but none of these has been decided so far.