Journalists protest torture on colleagues
PESHAWAR: Journalist here on Saturday blocked the Sher Shah Suri Road to protest the torture on their colleagues, criticised the doctors and paramedics of the Khyber Teaching Hospital for taking several journalists hostage and demanded judicial inquiry into the incident.
The protesting journalists led by Peshawar Press Club President Nasir Hussain and General Secretary Yousaf Ali and other senior journalists, condemned the use of force against the reporters while performing their duty.
Wearing black armbands, they condemned the highhandedness of the KTH doctors and apathy of the provincial government. They also chanted slogans against PTI chairman Imran Khan whose party is in power in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
Addressing the protesters, Nasir Hussain said it was an attack on freedom of press. He said journalists would protest for three days and in the next stage hold a rally outside the chief minister’s house.
He regretted that no person of authority has contacted the media personnel despite the fact that journalists were attacked and made hostage for over seven hours,
Nasir Hussain rejected the three-member committee comprising KTH doctors formed by the provincial government to investigate the incident as journalists weren’t consulted and the same people who tortured media personnel were members of the committee.
He demanded that an independent judicial committee should investigate the incident and its members should be neither journalists nor doctors or police personnel.
Regarding the probe committee announced by Health Minister Shaukat Yousafzai, Peshawar Press Club general secretary Yousaf Ali said that constituting an inquiry committee of the same people who tortured reporters was a cruel joke with journalists.
He said journalist organisations have decided to deny coverage to the Provincial Doctors Association (PDA) and Young Doctors Association (YDA) and entry of their members to the press club has also been banned.
He added that entry of Shaukat Yousafzai to the press club had also been banned.
” 
” 
” 
” 
