APNS condemns attempt to browbeat media
KARACHI: The All Pakistan Newspapers Society has severely criticised “attempts to browbeat media by acts of vandalism, looting and burning of copies of newspapers”.
A press release issued by the APNS on Monday said that an emergency meeting of the executive committee of the society took serious notice of reports that bundles of Jang and The News were snatched and torched by activists of a political party at gunpoint in different parts of Karachi and the Sindh province. “The hooligans physically assaulted hawkers, distribution agents and threatened dire consequences if the newspapers were distributed. Consequently, thousands of copies of the newspapers could not be distributed. In addition, the transmission of two TV channels were blocked in some parts of the country.”
Members of the committee strongly condemned the acts as an attempt to suppress the media by force. A resolution adopted at the meeting termed the incident a brutal attack on freedom of expression and reiterated that the media would continue to perform its professional duty to serve the people’s ‘right to knowÂ’.
The committee called upon the civil society, human right organisations and democratic forces across the country to strongly condemn the acts of violence against the media. The APNS also appealed to international human rights bodies to impress upon the federal and provincial governments to refrain from such acts and take action against the culprits.
Source: Dawn
Date:8/10/2010
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