PFUJ’s concern over kidnap of newsman
LAHORE- The Pakistan Federal Union of journalists (PFUJ) has expressed grave concern over the disappearance and fate of American journalist Daniel Pearl of The Wall Street Journal and urged the government to trace him and step up its efforts to arrest his kidnappers as early as possible.
In a statement issued here on Saturday, PFUJ president I.H. Raashed said that the disappearance of a foreign journalist was a unique incident as never before such an incident had happened in 55 years history of Pakistan where foreign correspondents, both who were stationed and had their offices in Pakistan and those who come on special assignments from foreign countries, had full freedom to perform their duties without any restriction on their movement and on transmission of their dispatches to their respective newspapers and news agencies.
He said that recently a large number of foreign journalists had come to Pakistan from all over the world to cover war against terrorism in Afghanistan and none of them had any complaint. However, some of them suffered and even lost their lives in Afghanistan but not in Pakistan where they had full freedom to work.
He said that the disappearance of the American journalist and later reports about his fate had caused a grave concern among the entire journalistic community of Pakistan which shared its anxiety with the international community of journalists in general and US journalists in particular. He urged the Pakistan government and the provincial governments to make all-out efforts to recover the missing foreign journalist and award exemplary punishment to his kidnappers.
Source: Dawn
Date:2/4/2002
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