Film Censorship in Pakistan

Over the course of two weeks, Pakistan's film industry has lost millions of rupees after the caretaker government dissolved the culture ministry and hence the Central Film Censor Board without actually appointing an alternative censor. The reorganisation intends to decentralise film censorship in Pakistan and pass the responsibility to the provinces.

It is still being debated whether a CBFC has a role in censoring national or foreign films while the provincial censors could be limited to censoring regional films.

After weeks of cinema losses, the caretaker set-up in Sindh notified that the Sindh Board of Film Censors will now be active and announced that Zulfiqar Ramzi will be its honorary chairman. In the absence of a federal censor board, the Sindh censor certificate will apply to all of Pakistan.

Distributors say several major films including The Great Gatsby, Iron Man 3, Star Trek 2, The Reluctant Fundamentalist, Yeh Jawani Deewani and Fast and the Furious have all been delayed. Zorraiz Lashari of the Film Distributors Association said:

Everybody is suffering. They should call it a careless government instead of a caretaker government... We are being forced to use the same films over and over.

After staving Pakistan's cinemas of films for a while, The central Censor Board has now been reconstituted. The Chairman is Syed Arshad Ali and Saraj Ahmed is the vice chair.

Ali explained that powers had been devolved to the provinces after 18th Amendment, and now the provinces could constitute their own film censor boards, but the provinces would not be able to censor the films for the entire country.

He told The News that after the devolution of power, provinces get the powers to constitute their own Film Censor Boards:

Except Sindh, no other province yet constituted their censor boards. The Sindh Assembly on February 14 approved Sindh Motion Pictures Act

He re-iterated that :

Provincial assemblies could legislate their laws for their province but cannot implement their laws in the entire Pakistan.

Only Central Film Censor Board had a power to issue certificate for showing a film through Pakistan as the provincial board could only issue the censor certificates for films to be shown in the province concerned.