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MNA Shazia Marri corrected Kashif Abbasi for trivialising harassment on national television
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MNA Shazia Marri corrected Kashif Abbasi for trivialising harassment on national television

Some of these anchors need to take a page out of Shahzeb Khanzada's playbook...
Images Staff
28 May, 2019

Another day, another ignorant statement made by a prominent talk show host.

ARY's Kashif Abbasi recently had former Governor Sindh, Mohammad Zubair and MNAs Andleeb Abbas and Shazia Marri on his show to discuss the NAB controversy that unfolded a few days ago when some footage and a few audio clips were first aired by News One in which a male can be heard talking to a woman, and making inappropriate remarks at various points; the channel linked the male voice with the NAB chairman, Javed Iqbal.

NAB had denied that the audio clips had anything to do with its chairman, branding them "baseless, fake and based on lies".

During the discussion, Shazia Marri pointed out that the incident needs to be investigated and could constitute as harassment to which Abbasi responded that it seems consensual: "*Aap auraton ke liye bohot asaan hai shor daalna: harassment! harassment! harassment!” (It's very easy for you women to cause a ruckus claiming harassment).

Thankfully, Marri was quick to correct him: "Shor nahi daaltay hum harassment ka, harassment hoti hai (We don't just make a commotion about harassment, harassment actually happens). For God's sake, I thought you're a sensitised man but I'm having my doubts today."

Abbasi still didn't get it and said, "You women always play the victim card."

"We play the 'victim card' because we are victimised. To be very honest, we're living in a society, in fact a world, where women are more vulnerable [than men]," she added.

We're so glad Shazia schooled him on his grossly misinformed views about harassment. We're in the post #MeToo era and things need to change. We don't need hosts on national television dismissing harassment and mocking survivors of abuse. Some of these anchors really need to take a page out of Shahzeb Khanzada's playbook, who's on the right side of history.

Comments

Bert and Ernie May 28, 2019 02:46pm
Some of these anchors need a good bashing.
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Parvez May 28, 2019 02:52pm
Full marks to Shazia Mari for taking a stand and pointing out what was decidedly wrong......and better sense would have been expected frm Mr. Kashif Abbassi.
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Scary May 28, 2019 02:55pm
I watched the show and I was horrified at the way he went after Shazia. But then for me he does this with most of his guests. He is an arrogant and rude person by nature. One of the reason why our country will never progress is because anchors like Kashif Abbasi sit on their chair each night and insult their guests left right and center. They come with that attitude that tonight I am going to pick on PML-N or PPP. You will very seldom find him attacking PTI. He gets furious if anyone attacks them. Really Pakistan viewers should turn away from these male chauvinist, impertinent and rude anchors.
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Dawood May 28, 2019 03:15pm
Dont spin his words, he meant in the context of the story
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K Ahmad May 28, 2019 03:21pm
Shazia is right. Men in our country do it all the time. This has to be taken seriously
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ZAHID May 28, 2019 03:28pm
Kashif Abbasi is a biased anchor and now he is even a biased person
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AXH May 28, 2019 03:45pm
Shahzeb Khanzada's name was mentioned because he is pro PML-N and PPP. As for harassment, absolutely it needs to be called out. However, Kashif was right in pointing out that the female voice sounded consensual.
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Truthspeaks May 28, 2019 04:20pm
It was very mutual and actually NAB chairman is being harassed and threatened here the women is playing the victim card
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Ali May 28, 2019 04:20pm
Hats off for Shazia Marri. We need people like her. And hosts like Kashif Abbasi should be banned for life from shows.
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Zahid May 28, 2019 04:25pm
@AXH spot on!
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naveed May 28, 2019 04:29pm
I agree with the host you have to prove what you say otherwise its just nuisance
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Tariq May 28, 2019 05:29pm
misogynists should be taken to task and put in their place. Well done Shazia Marri.
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Alam May 28, 2019 05:47pm
Most of the male anchors are totally insensitive to women issues and they still consider women as a ‘thing’ .
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Alam May 28, 2019 05:50pm
Those who became anchor and journalist without any proper schooling and training will always fall short of industry expectations and ethical standards !
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Farooq May 28, 2019 06:05pm
He was totally right - from the video and audio it never looked harassment and it is not so using harassment for such incidence was childish on Shazia Mariz part but then one doesn't expect much from someone associated with PPP.
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Amjad Durrani Engineer USA May 28, 2019 06:12pm
Bravo. These chicken warriors anchors sitting in the cozy settings of TV studios, giving out unsubstantiated statements left & right, need to be rebuked and corrected, the way Ms Shazia did. One gets baffled to listen to such ignorant remarks by these anchors, denying the fact, that our females who make up 49% of country’s population, don’t face any sexual harassment. Looking up at very painful statistics, of 300 women killed every year in the name of honors, scores suffering physical mutilation through acid attack for turning down marriage proposals, hundred child marriages taking place, Vani & rapes decreed by so-called Jirgas / Punchaits happening every now and then and 3.3 million 5- 15 year aged children mostly girls working as bonded labor, in small factories, brick kilns, agriculture fields & as housemaids, are ongoing discrimination against females in the country. These chicken warriors making ultimate claims in their talk without any substance must do some schooling.
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Ali May 28, 2019 06:26pm
But in the video the woman made the video to black mail the NAB Chairman. Kashif seems to be right....
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Tariq Islam May 28, 2019 06:41pm
It's all in context
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HashBrown® May 28, 2019 07:17pm
I saw the show, and was a little shocked at how aggressive Kashif was. He's usually quite vocal, but this time he seemed to have a particularly vicious agenda, and Shazia Marri did well to push back against him.
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FAZ May 28, 2019 08:11pm
When you are accused and you are a man, you are guilty. You should resign, you should be deprived of any award/appraisals/increments. Ok we will see later if that accusation holds good in court, later... Thats how we are gona solve this problem?
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Concerned May 28, 2019 09:18pm
Let me explain the consensual part of the video The woman there is being investigated and the chairman is the authority The consent factor could be defensive on part of the woman and manipulating and out of authority on part of the chairman NAB This outrightly shows why people have committed suicide at the hands of NAB authority People like kashif should be ashamed trying to protect something like that this questions his credibility intact .
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Ahsan Ansari May 29, 2019 12:41am
Zubair Umer is a shameless person defending PMLN goons statements against NAB.
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zorro``` May 29, 2019 02:18am
When will Pakistanis learn to respect women. After all are they so 'dumb' as to not realize that when they harass a woman, it;s akin to harassing a female member of their own family. Unfortunately, this scourge is not only prevalent among the uneducated, uncouth male members of Pakistani society, but I see that nowadays, more and more of the educated and class indulging in this vile habit, like it's a sport for them. These kind of people should be given capital punishment as an example to others to learn more respect for women folk.
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Laila May 29, 2019 02:34am
Maybe we can dress him up in women's clothes and niqab and send him out on the streets and see what he thinks then. Harassment of women is real. Stop trivialising it.
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Ak May 29, 2019 03:47am
I watched the show and Kashif did not cross the line. He raising a valid point where Shazia was only doing politics.
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Umer May 29, 2019 04:22am
Kashif hit the nail. At least he has the courage to speak up
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Laila May 29, 2019 05:37am
@Dawood Don't justify his misogyny and downplaying harassment. He was out of line. He is a biased and it shows.
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Imran Khan May 29, 2019 06:25am
Very nice Shazia Gee
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Jameel May 29, 2019 06:55am
Some of the anchors need sacking, host should be presenting impartially and as soon as anchor takes anyone side then should be shown the door.
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Mehkan Ali May 29, 2019 07:05am
I have immense respect for Kashif Abbasi. I agree he should not have just gone ahead and generalized every single harassment situation. This mindset of his is quite clear especially because he is constantly in a social setting (ARY office , colleagues and so forth) wherein his information environment is biased by this generalization. Now having said that, in this particular instance, it seems from the recording that the woman did not object to whatever the NAB chairman was saying. This can be interpreted as she was okay with it, and perhaps in this context she had ulterior motives. So Kashif should have not generalized rather isolated this particular incident away from the #MeToo movement and women being harassed. The rest, everybody's comfort level is different much like other preferences. Some girls are okay with hugging while others consider handshake, or even a 'goodmorning' message as invasive, so we have to tread carefully.
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Asad May 29, 2019 09:54am
Kashif Abbasi was right
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Harry Jam May 29, 2019 06:56pm
He's a bully. I used to be his fan long time ago. He's sexist.
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Laila May 31, 2019 01:04am
@Ali how do you know her intentions? You only have an audio. Not a video recording so you don't know how she reacted with her body language or facial expressions. Maybe she was collecting evidence. Otherwise you guys would be saying where is the proof. Come in. Cut us women a break. We can only take so much. Kashif is in the wrong.
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Asim jaffery May 31, 2019 07:03am
Mr Abbasi if only you understand what harassment actually means .
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Waheed A Tunio May 31, 2019 11:24am
The anchor in question doesn't know even the ABC of hosting/journalism. He just keeps on interupting guests and making unnessary comments. These buffoons take undue advantage of their position.
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