Pakistani TV news channel ordered off air after criticising spy agency

A leading TV news station which dared to criticise Pakistan's feared spy agency has been ordered off the air after a standoff which has further soured relations between the country's military and politicians.

Pakistan's broadcast media regulator suspended Geo News's operating licence for 15 days and fined it £60,000 for defaming the head of the military's Inter-Services Intelligence directorate (ISI), General Zaheer-ul-Islam.

The channel's president, Imran Aslam, condemned the decision, saying the "forces of might have prevailed" in the seven-week row, which many analysts fear has cowed the private media, setting back efforts to curb army power.

"It seems that justice has bowed down to forces that are above the law," Aslam said.

Amnesty International said it was a serious attack on press freedom in the country. "It is the latest act in an organised campaign of harassment and intimidation targeting the network on account of its perceived bias against the military," Amnesty said.

The row began on 19 April when Geo's coverage of an attempt to kill Hamid Mir, the channel's best-known journalist, enraged the military.

Geo gave prominence to claims by Mir's brother that the ISI was behind the gun attack, which left the journalist seriously wounded. He claimed the hit had been ordered by Zaheer-ul-Islam, and the channel aired photographs and video of the otherwise little-seen spy chief.

The hours of coverage, delivered in the tabloid style that made Geo the country's most watched private channel, represented an unprecedented public assault on the ISI – an institution described by critics as an all-powerful state within a state.

It sparked a furious effort to close down a TV channel which in the 12 years since the start of Pakistan's electronic media boom has emerged as one of the most powerful institutions in the country.

Geo picked fights with the government and felt secure enough to question core beliefs of the military establishment, including the ruthless tactics used to crush separatist rebels in Balochistan and opposition to a rapid normalisation of relations with arch-enemy India.

Immediately after the attack, the military lodged a formal request to the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (Pemra) for Geo to be shut down because it had damaged an important state institution.

An informal campaign against the station became increasingly serious as the weeks passed.

Rightwing religious militants demonstrated in favour of the ISI, pressure was put on cable operations to drop Geo from its lineup and an incendiary claim was made that the channel had broadcast blasphemous material in a light entertainment morning show.

Geo's outside broadcasting vans were attacked and vehicles used for delivering the company's newspapers were torched. Spotting an opportunity to bring down a competitor that utterly dominates Pakistan's private television market Geo's commercial rivals also joined in, attacking the company for being "anti-state".

Aslam said the company had been financially crippled and his staff "harassed, intimidated and physically assaulted by shadowy forces".

On Friday, before the Pemra announcement, the firm announced it was suing the regulator, the ISI and the army for "defaming and maligning the group by accusing it of working on an anti-Pakistan agenda". It demanded compensation of more than £300m.

Throughout the crisis, the group has shifted from angry defiance to efforts to defuse the row, even printing front page apologies on its newspapers. The affair has wider implications than just the future of the company, which is owned by the reclusive media mogul Mir Shakil-ur-Rahman, who micro-manages editorial decisions from his base in Dubai.

The government has supported Geo in its fight with the army, with prime minister Nawaz Sharif visiting Hamid Mir in hospital after the attack. Sharif has told confidants he would rather be ousted from power than agree to let Geo be closed down.

Sharif was the victim of a military coup in 1999 and his relations with the army are fraught.

In his latest stint in power, the two sides have clashed over the treason trial of former military leader Pervez Musharraf and whether operations should be launched against Taliban sanctuaries in North Waziristan.