PFUJ slams ministry for attacks on newspaper offices | Pakistan Press Foundation (PPF)

Pakistan Press Foundation

PFUJ slams ministry for attacks on newspaper offices

KARACHI, December 24 2005: The Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists (PFUJ) has blamed the Federal Ministry of Information for the burning of the offices of some Sindhi newspapers and attack on a newspaper office in Sukkur.

According to a press release, the PFUJ has decided to call a meeting of the Sindhi editors and journalists at the Karachi Press Club on December 28 to review the entire situation and draw a joint strategy to “resist government pressure on newspapers aimed at publishing pro-Kalabagh advertisements”. PFUJ President Pervaiz Shoukat and Secretary General Mazhar Abbas in a joint statement said that for the last couple of days, the ministry was trying to pressurise the newspapers, particularly the Sindhi newspapers, to publish pro-Kalabagh advertisements.

Majority of the Sindhi newspapers had turned down the government ads except for one or two newspapers that had agreed to carry such advertisements. However, these newspapers met stiff resistance from their staff.

PFUJ leaders praised the Sindhi newspapers for refusing government ads. They called all those journalists who resigned from a Sindhi newspaper to express their protest against the “pro-dam” policies of the newspaper’s management.
Source: Daily Times
Date:12/24/2005