Opposition and journalists express concern at possible ban
ISLAMABAD, June 27 2006: Members of parliament belonging to the opposition and journalists have expressed concern at reports that the government might bar media representatives from attending meetings of the National Assembly’s (NA) standing committees. Raja Pervez Ashraf of the Pakistan People’s Party Parliamentarians (PPPP) told Daily Times that the parliament is a public institution and the people had a right to know “what their representatives are doing there”.
The proceedings of all standing committees of parliament should be open to both electronic and print media, he said. Five of the 35 NA standing committees are currently open to the media: the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) and the standing committees on local government, population welfare, food and agriculture and the interior.
Official sources reported on June 26 that the National Assembly speaker had held meetings with chairmen of the these five standing committees to chalk out a strategy to deal with the “problem” of media coverage of their sessions. State Information Minister Senator Tariq Azeem refused to confirm or deny government plans to restrict the media from standing committee proceedings. However, he said a uniform policy regarding media access to such meetings should be formed. It should be the committee chairpersons’ discretion to declare off the record any portion of the proceedings of the session, he said.
M Ziauddin, the resident editor of Dawn, said restricting the media from covering standing committee meetings would be “an effort to avoid transparency”. Sohail Iqbal, the editor of Online news agency, said proceedings of committees as important as PAC should not be kept secret from media and the people.
Source: Daily Times
Date:6/27/2006
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