Press bodies to defend reporters’ right tomorrow
KARACHI: On behalf of press organisations, senior lawyers will defend tomorrow (Tuesday) in the court of Sindh High Court (SHC) chief justice the immunity available to reporters of not divulging the source of the news they file.
It may be recalled that in the Imran Farooq murder case, a 2-member bench of SHC headed by the CJ had summoned PFUJ, KUJ, CPNE, and reporter Agha Khalid to help the court in respect of an application filed by the wife of alleged accused Khalid Shamim regarding his disappearance. The court had ordered reporter Agha Khalid to prove the immunity he claims of not disclosing the source of the news. At this point Khawaja Naveed Ahmad Advocate had argued before the court that if an example was established, this would cause serious problems for journalists. This would endanger the very life of reporters.
On this hearing journalist organizations had requested the court to grant permission to engage a lawyer. It may be mentioned that PFUJ (Barna Group) and KUJ (Barna Group) had not appeared before the court in spite of summons. It is expected that on the next hearing PFUJ (Dastoori) president Idris Bakhtiar will appear himself while senior lawyer Rasheed A Rizvi will represent KPC and President (Barna Group) G M Jamali will appear before the court in person.
Talking to this correspondent they said that they would submit different decisions of superior courts to defend the right of reporters not to divulge their source. They said that it was necessary for the safety of journalists. Meanwhile senior lawyers will argue in favour of journalists on May 7 (Tuesday).
Source: The News
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