Qureshi denies pressure on The News
ISLAMABAD- Major General Rashid Qureshi said the government has not pressured the administration of daily The News to sack its former editor who made this claim in an interview with the CNN.
Answering questions to journalists after the Press briefing at the Foreign Office, Qureshi said, “The government had not pressured The News administration.” He also denied former editor’s claim that the government had stopped advertisements to dailies Jang and The News.
Qureshi said that he had checked all the record that shows that Jang group received more ads as compared to Nawa-I-Waqt Group, Dawn Group and others.
He said it was not true that the government was trying to pressure the print media and such allegations were totally baseless.
He said earlier a similar allegation was made against the government that a reporter of Nawa-I-Waqt was sacked for asking a hard question to the President. He said that when Mr. Majid Nizami was asked whether he had sacked the reporter under pressure from the government, he said: “No one can dare dictate me to sack an employee of my institution.
The action, which I took against my reporter was in accordance with the editorial policy of my newspaper.”
He said the newspapers and columnist continue to criticise the government and sometime write untrue reports. He said we only told journalists and columnists that whatever they have written is against the facts.
Source: The Nation
Date:3/27/2002
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