CPNE reiterates commitment to defend Press freedom
KARACHI- The Council of Pakistan Newspaper Editors’ Standing Committee at its meeting here July 30th, 2003 declared in a unanimous resolution its total commitment to defend Press freedom in Pakistan and the total rejection of official pressure tactics including the use of Press advice and advertising. In a review of Press freedom situation, the Standing Committee meeting, presided over by Mr Altaf Hassan Qureshi, Acting President of the CPNE, heard very strong views from its members on the events of recent threats and pressure on member publications and decided that all such attempts by the official quarter in the country should be resisted strongly. CPNE reiterated its longstanding position that it shall never accept any pressure including the curtailment of advertisement quantum as a lever against the newspapers.
The CPNE meeting declared that the government amazes the CPNE at the claims that the Press is free when in actual, every effort is being made to pressurise the newspapers. These include selective curtailing of advertisements to certain newspapers, the police raid on the office of the monthly Shahrag-e-Pakistan in Lahore- and the maltreatment of newsmen and editors during the curfew imposition in Quetta. All these incidents were part of a chain of events showing loud and clear the attempts on part of government to pressurise newspapers and periodicals of the country who exercise their right of Press freedom in the service of democracy.
The CPNE Standing Committee in its resolution declared that how could the government-Press relations be termed as fraternal while the government is taking unilateral actions to pressurise the newspapers. The meeting declared that any effort to centralise the issuance of advertisements by the government, as was done in the past decades but which became counter productive, would only lead to disastrous results for the government. The meeting called for a meaningful dialogue between CPNE and the government on all the issues raised by CPNE and resolve the same without further delay to demonstrate its sincerity in its claimed commitment of ensuring Press freedom in the country.
The meeting also expressed solidarity with the member publications who suffered uncalled for pressures and dislocation due to the most objectionable attitude of the authorities to the Press.
The meeting constituted a committee headed by the CPNE Presiden Mir Shakeelur Rehman to take up the contentious issues as pointed out in the meeting with the Government of Pakistan in the Ministry of Information, at the earliest.
The meeting was attended by Mr Mahmoodul Aziz, (Vice-President), Mr Waseem Ahmed, (Vice-President), Dr Jabbar Khattak (Secretary General), Mr Mehtab Khan Abbasi, (Finance Secretary), Mr Abdul Rasheed Ghazi, (joint Secretary), Mr Mehatab Khan Abbasi, (Finance Secretary), Mr Ahmed Ali Khan, (daily Dawn), Mr M.A. Zubairi (daily Business Recorder), Mr Arif Nizami (daily The Nation), Syed Faseeh lqbal (daily Balochistan Times), Mushtaq Ahmed Qureshi, (monthly Nai-Ufaq), Owais Aslam Ali (Pakistan Press International), Naseer Hashmi (daily Ummat), Waqar Yousuf Azeemi (monthly Roohani Digest), Anwar Farooqi (daily Aghaz), Iqbal Sidhu (daily Din), Kazi Asad Abid (daily Ibrat), Javed Mehr Shamsi (daily Kaleem), Aamir Mehmood (monthly Kiran), Qutubuddin (daily Pakistan), Mr Inqilab Matri (daily Millat), Mr Sajjad Mil (daily Nawa-i-Waqt), Mr Ilyas Shakir (D / Qaumi Akhbar), Khalid Mahmood Shah (M. Shahrag-e-Pakistan), Muzaffar Aijaz (daily Jasarat), Ghulam Akbar, (daily Al-Akhbar), Syed Mumtaz Ahmed (daily Mashriq Quetta and Umer Shehzad daily Wahdat).
Source: The Nation
Date:7/31/2003
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