Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Nov 16, 2007
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Online edition of India's National Newspaper Friday, Nov 16, 2007 ePaper |
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LAHORE: The country chapters of the South Asian Free Media Association (SAFMA) and different media organisations in the region have expressed solidarity with Pakistan journalists against the curbs on media freedom imposed after the proclamation of Emergency. They are handing over letters of protest to Pakistan High Commissions in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. “We share the Pakistani media’s concerns over the present situation and fully support their demand for the immediate withdrawal of the two laws that have severely hampered the normal functioning of the print media and forced private television news channels to go off the air,” said a letter by the SAFMA India chapter. Reports of arrest of journalists, including SAFMA secretary general Imtiaz Alam, snatching of equipment, threats hurled at them and the hardships suffered by them had caused great anguish, it said. Mediapersons from the region said they saluted the Pakistani journalists for the valiant stand taken by them in defence of media freedom. Mr. Alam thanked the mediapersons from the region for their support. A letter from the Sri Lankan media, signed by all journalists’ organisations, including the SAFMA, was handed over to Suriya Jamal, press attaché of the Pakistan High Commission in Colombo. The journalists who went to the High Commission represented the SAFMA, the Free Media Movement, the Sri Lanka Working Journalists’ Association, the Sri Lanka Muslim Media Forum, the Tamil Media Alliance and the Federation of Media Employees’ Trade Unions. They protested what they called the “arbitrary and forceful imposition of constraints on the mass media, the mass arrest, detention and physical harassment of media personnel and the general suspension of basic rights in Pakistan.” “Shock and alarm”They expressed “shock and alarm” over these developments. “Even as we have experienced a similarly drastic undermining of democracy in our own country, including physical assault on, and intimidation, legal harassment and suppression of, the Sri Lankan mass media by virtually all major political and armed groups and forces, including the state, we can also empathise with and understand the trauma currently being suffered by your citizens, including media personnel,” the letter said. They urged the Pakistani authorities to immediately withdraw the Emergency, end the abuse of police and military powers, and punish all violators of human rights, reinstate all state, public and judiciary officers within the framework of normally functioning democratic institutions, and take all necessary steps to restore the full structures and practices of democracy, including the holding of free and fair elections, full civilian government and ensuring a freely operating and plural mass media. The letter from Nepal journalists and human rights activists said they were seriously concerned over the repression of the press, closure of television channels, the sorry state of human rights, and the derailed democratic processes due to the imposition of Emergency. “We protest the forceful muzzling of press freedom, attacks on judiciary and civil liberty, and systematic assaults on justice, democracy, people’s conscience and sovereignty. We strongly insist the immediate release of all people arrested on the basis of political conscience, defending human rights and freedom of expression,” the letter said.
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