Court reporter union wants media in SHC Fri
KARACHI: The Association of Court Reporters has condemned the harassment of a senior court reporter and threats of arrest to others issued by a senior police officer here on Wednesday.
In its meeting, the union heard the ordeal of a reporter who was taken into custody after being identified by an intelligence sleuth roaming around the SHC. The security officials brought the reporter (of a local Urdu eveninger) and made him to sit in a police mobile designed like a prison van. He was let off after his name and identity were formally recorded by intelligence officials.
According to a senior reporter of a television channel, a senior police official warned journalists against possible arrests on orders by “high-ups”. The union took strong notice of these incidents and while reiterating its resolve to perform professional obligations under all and trying circumstances, appealed to the Chief Justice of the Sindh High Court to take notice of excesses by the police and law enforcing agencies.
The union also noted with concern that while a number of cases were fixed for hearing before two full benches of the SHC on Nov 16, Friday, including the hearing of the May 12 mayhem case, two contempt cases against Chief Minister Arbab Ghulam Rahim, the media was not allowed to cover the court proceedings and access to information had been denied to the fourth pillar of the State.
The union also requested the Registrar of the SHC to spell out whether the ban on the media was placed by the judiciary or if it was the making of the present government.
It said that if there were no bar on the judiciary, passes should be issued to bona fide members of the union for Nov 16 so that court proceedings were covered objectively and in detail, as had been issued in the past as a matter of routine.
The union is ready to cooperate with proper coverage of court proceedings and assured that its members would perform only their professional duties during their presence inside the SHC premises, it said, demanding an end to the ban.
Source: Daily Times
Date:11/15/2007
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