SUKKUR: Three unidentified armed men attacked the office of a Sindhi daily, Khabroon, on Friday. Three motorcyclists stormed the newspaper’s office in the Golimar area. They ransacked its property, held the guards hostage for some time and fired in the air before fleeing. No one was reported injured. The men also fired at the door of the paper’s newsroom. They also set fire to the reception counter.
Sheikh Rashid condemns attack: Federal Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed on Friday condemned the attack on the office of the Sindhi newspaper. "Such acts should be strongly condemned as these are an assault to the freedom of expression," he said in a statement. He said the government wanted people to have an easy access to information. The minsiter pledged that the government would do every thing possible to punish the culprits.
PFUJ slams ministry for attacks on newspaper offices
KARACHI: The Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists (PFUJ) has blamed the Federal Ministry of Information for the burning of the offices of some Sindhi newspapers and attack on a newspaper office in Sukkur.
According to a press release, the PFUJ has decided to call a meeting of the Sindhi editors and journalists at the Karachi Press Club on December 28 to review the entire situation and draw a joint strategy to "resist government pressure on newspapers aimed at publishing pro-Kalabagh advertisements". PFUJ President Pervaiz Shoukat and Secretary General Mazhar Abbas in a joint statement said that for the last couple of days, the ministry was trying to pressurise the newspapers, particularly the Sindhi newspapers, to publish pro-Kalabagh advertisements. Majority of the Sindhi newspapers had turned down the government ads except for one or two newspapers that had agreed to carry such advertisements. However, these newspapers met stiff resistance from their staff.
PFUJ leaders praised the Sindhi newspapers for refusing government ads. They called all those journalists who resigned from a Sindhi newspaper to express their protest against the "pro-dam" policies of the newspaper’s management.
