International media has highlighted the historic victory of Jang and Geo group in a London court and its verdict throwing out allegations against it and shutting down ARY channels in the United Kingdom. The judgment was widely covered in newspapers across the globe and was termed as one of the most significant in the history of world media.
American newspapers New York Times and Washington Post ran the news on closure of the Pakistani media group's TV channels as major headlines in their publications. The BBC reported the shutdown of the ARY channels along with the court's dismissal of all its allegations against Editor-in-Chief Jang and Geo group as baseless and its order for payment of libel damages and costs. TV channels ABC and Fox News and newspapers The Gazette, Mirror, Las-Vegas Sun, and other publications gave prominent space to the decision in favour of Editor-in-Chief Jang and Geo group Mir Shakil-ur-Rahman in the defamation case brought up by him for adjudication.
The court order said that ARY completely failed to prove its allegations against Editor-in-Chief Jang and Geo group Mir Shakil-ur-Rahman. The court ordered the group to pay three million pounds in damages and costs and, as a result of its failure to do so, the ARY channels were closed.
ARY had repeatedly accused Editor-in-Chief Jang and Geo group Mir Shakil-ur-Rahman of being an agent of Indian intelligence agency RAW, Israel’s Mosaad and American CIA. It falsely propagated that the Editor-in-Chief of Jang and Geo group committed treason by conspiring with Indian and other foreign intelligence agencies; was disloyal to Pakistan; committed blasphemy; offered to broadcast the American intelligence agency's choice of television programmes as if they were a public service campaign, in return for payment, thereby deceiving the Pakistani people; was involved in attempting to destroy evidence at the crime scene of the attack on Hamid Mir; and ridiculed the teachings of Islam. ARY incited violence against the Editor-in-Chief of Jang and Geo group falsely accusing him of being a blasphemer and defaming Islam.