State denied journalists their rights in 2004: SAFMA
LAHORE February 22, 2005: State institutions and organisations have denied Pakistani journalists their rights to freedom and information in 2004, observed ‘Media Monitor 2004’, a report by the South Asia Free Media Association (SAFMA).
One journalist was shot dead, some were assaulted and many were denied freedom of movement and access to information, except on the SAFMA organised visit to both sides of Kashmir by Indo-Pak journalists.The government also banned the placement of advertisements in newspapers of the Nawa-i-Waqt group for allegedly opposing it. The Sindh government also banned eight regional newspapers for 30 days allegedly for publishing ‘vulgar’ pictures and stories.
Even foreign journalists and correspondents were targeted in this connection. Incidents of journalists being of tortured and detained were also reported. Meanwhile, media and human rights organisations, including trade unions, continued to strive for the rights of journalists.
According to the SAFMA report, an elected local government official allegedly killed Sajid Tanoli, a reporter for the daily Shamal, in Mansehra for exposing his contraband business.Rahimullah Yousafzai, a reporter for the English daily The News, escaped an attempt on his life when his vehicle came under fire in the tribal areas near Peshawar.
The police arrested Ghulam Shehzad Agha, the editor of the banned magazine Kargil International, in Skardu, Northern Areas, for supporting the region’s autonomy.
The police arrested the programme and administration managers of FM 103, a radio station, under the ‘Maintenance of Public Order Ordinance Section16’ for criticising government hospitals. Later the police also arrested the radio’s two junior staff members, confiscated equipment and stopped its transmission. Punjab Secretariat security officials assaulted a reporter of the English daily Dawn for reporting alleged extortion by security staff during Ramadan.
BBC journalist Zafar Abbas and his cameraman, who travelled with the former Punjab chief minister Shahbaz Shahrif, were taken into custody by the police at Lahore airport and deprived of their recorded tapes. The police detained CNN producer Mohsin Naqvi at his home so that he missed a flight to Dubai to accompany Shahbaz Sharif’s attempt to return home from exile.
Kanwar Sandhu, the resident editor of the daily Hindustan Times, was deported after he had checked in a hotel in Lahore while accompanying the chief minister of Haryana.
The Pakistani embassy in Kathmandu denied visas to two Nepalese journalists. An embassy official claimed that the TV channel they worked for was based in India and they should seek visas from the Pakistan High Commission in New Delhi. The embassy also refused visa to the deputy editor of The Himalayan Times on a similar pretext. Some Pakistani journalists, who were in New York to cover Musharraf’s visit to the United States, were interrogated for hours by US immigration.
Journalists in the tribal areas threatened a march in Islamabad to protest the ban on their movement in South Waziristan.The court barred a news channel and contempt of court notice was issued to its producer. A two-member Lahore High Court (LHC) bench restrained the producer from telecasting any programme, documentary or discussion on the partial demolition of a LHC building wing.
The Lahore High Court released on bail a Lahore-based journalist, who reported paramilitary rangers excesses against tenants of Okara, after he was detained for over two months. A two-judge bench of the Peshawar High Court acquitted Munawar Mohsin Ali, a sub-editor of The Frontier Post, who was allegedly arrested for publishing a blasphemous letter in January 2001 and sentenced to life imprisonment by a district judge in 2003.
The All Pakistan Newspapers Society (APNS) went to court against the Wage Board Award and sought permanent injunction against the implementation of any award under the Newspaper Employees (Conditions of service) Act 1973. They also criticised the federal information ministry for proposing the linking government advertisements to the implementation of the 7th Wage Board Award. Journalists, newspaper employees’ bodies, Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists (PFUJ) and the All Pakistan Newspapers Employees Confederation (APNEC) decried the APNS’s stand and urged it to accept the wage board.
Source: Daily Times
Date:2/22/2005
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