Heirs of assassinated journalists to get jobs: Memon
arachi: Sindh Minister for Information Sharjeel Inam Memon said on Thursday that the provincial government was likely to prepare a directory of bona fide journalists as it had been observed that certain people were impersonating media people with fake credentials.
He was speaking at a luncheon his ministry had hosted for the working journalists at a local hotel. Provincial ministers and MPAs also attended the event.
Memon disclosed that the government had decided to give jobs to one of the family members of those journalists who were killed while performing their professional duties. He said the government would also establish a gallery for such journalists.
Responding to criticism by representatives of the Karachi Press Club (KPC) and the Karachi Union of Journalists (KUJ), the information minister said the PPP had come to power under some very difficult circumstances and it was still facing challenges on the internal and external fronts.
He said the government had fulfilled its commitment by arresting the alleged killers of a Geo reporter, Wali Khan Babar, and it was now the responsibility of the media to expose the conspirators behind the murder.
He claimed that the government had given freedom to the media, but the media appeared to have been held hostage by some other elements.
He said the provincial government would bear the expenses of treatment of journalist Naveed Kamal.
The minister said staging protests was the democratic right of the people, but the KPC should not be besieged.
He recalled that doctors and employees of the education department had also staged protests outside the KPC for several days.
The minister clarified that the PPP was not directly involved in the KESC labour’s protest and if any PPP leader had hurled threats at any journalist, they should be identified so that the party leadership could take action against them.
KPC President Tahir Hasan Khan said it appeared that the government had not been interested in the Wage Award for the journalists. He said for the last over 20 days, the KPC had been under siege by the protesting workers but the government was not giving any response to the journalists’ complaints in this regard.
When he said that certain PPP leaders had threatened some KPC members recently, some journalists shouted “shame, shame”.
Khan said lack of security at the KPC was a matter of concern for the journalists, and the parking mafia, in connivance with the police, had occupied the surrounding roads of the press club.
He recalled that the chief minister of Sindh had promised to take action in this regard, but one-and-a-half years had passed, and the promise was yet to be fulfilled.
The KPC president said that the club’s governing body had decided to boycott the luncheon in protest, and he turned up only to raise their concerns there.
When Tahir Hasan Khan, along with some other journalists, left the venue, Pir Mazhar-ul-Haq and Sharjeel Inam Memon persuaded him to end the protest.
The general-secretary of the Karachi Union of Journalists (KUJ), Hasan Abbas, demanded of the government to set up a Sindh journalists foundation.
He said that several journalists, including Wali Khan Babar, Munir Sangi, Ashraf Panhwar and Ashiq Mangi, were killed in the province in the recent past, while Naveed Kamal sustained bullet wounds.
Abbas said the provision of guards or giving arms licences were not the solution to the problem of insecurity being faced by the journalists.
Source: The News
Date:5/20/2011
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