Journalists’ rights to be defended: minister
PESHAWAR, Aug 04 2005: NWFP Information Minister Asif Iqbal Daudzai has assured the journalists that the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal’s provincial government will defend and protect their rights and resolve their problems on priority basis. He was talking to a delegation of the Khyber Union of Journalists (KhUJ) which called on him at his office on Wednesday (August 3), led by KhUJ President Javid Aziz Khan.
The minister said that a committee, formed to ensure implementation of the Seventh Wage Award in the local newspapers, would be reactivated and would hold its meeting fortnightly.
He urged the newspaper establishments to implement the wage award and issue appointment letters to their employees at the earliest. He said that the MMA government had always supported the journalists in their struggle for better wages, incentives and working conditions in the newspapers and other media organizations in the province.
The NWFP Assembly had passed a unanimous resolution for the implementation of the wage award whereas the provincial government had backed the resolution and pledged to amicably settle the row between the newspapers employees and employers, he added.
The KhUJ delegation presented a charter of demands, including implementation of the wage award and issuance of appointment letters by national and regional newspapers otherwise stoppage of government advertisements to them, allocation of a plot quota for the journalists in the Regi Lalma Residential Scheme, release of annual funds to the Peshawar Press Club and the KhUJ, visits of other provinces by Peshawar-based journalists and re-introduction of Haj quota for journalists by the provincial government.
Mr Daudzai told the delegation that accommodation problem of the journalists would be resolved on priority basis and a meeting of the housing society and information and finance officials would be held with representatives of the journalists for allotment of plots to them in the Regi Lalma Scheme.
He said that the provincial information department was keen to establish a Sarhad Journalists Foundation for the welfare of journalists and called on the newspapers employers to donate two per cent of their income for the welfare of their employees.
Source: Dawn
Date:8/4/2005
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