Journalists demand action against concerned official
PESHAWAR- The journalist community in Peshawar has asked the authorities to initiate action against the official responsible for booking innocent staffers of The Frontier Post for publishing a blasphemous letter in the newspaper on January 29.
Addressing a press conference, President Khyber Union of Journalists (Kh.UJ) Fakhr-e-Alam and President Peshawar Press Club (PPC) Suhail Qalandar said that the director of information, NWFP, played an ugly role in the entire episode by naming innocent staffers of the daily in the First Information Report (FIR). They asked the NWFP government to ask the director for his irresponsible and unwise act.
They asked the NWFP governor and corps commander, Peshawar to order an immediate release of the detained Frontier Post staffers, not directly responsible for publication of the blasphemous letter.
Appreciating the setting up of a judicial commission to probe the entire matter, the leaders of the journalists asked for unsealing offices of The Frontier Post and Maidan so that publication of the two newspapers could be resumed. They regretted that closure of the two dailies would render hundreds of workers jobless.
Kh.UJ-PPC leaders made it clear that like many other Muslims in Pakistan and other parts of the world, feelings of the journalists in Peshawar were also hurt due to the publication of the blasphemous letter. But it would not be fair to blame the entire community or all the staffers of The Frontier Post for the mistake of one individual. “That is why we have been asking for an independent and fair inquiry to reach out the truth,” they added.
Source: The News
Date:2/3/2001
” 
” 
” 
” 
