KARACHI: Journalists of the print and electronic media, from Karachi to Lahore and Islamabad, are under threat and they need to unite across the country.
This was stated Tuesday during a Karachi Union of Journalists (KUJ) meeting held in protest of the Islamabad Press Club being sealed by the government, the harassment of newspaper employees in Karachi by armed individuals and the ban imposed on the media from entering the PIMS hospital in Islamabad. The meeting was held in Karachi Press Club’s (KPC) Ibrahim Jalees Hall. KUJ President Shamim-u-Rehman said that the Pakistani media was not trained in ‘conflict’ reporting. “No government or media institution has trained reporters, photographers and cameramen to cover conflicts. Nobody is protecting people of the media,” Rehman added.
He said that media staff should be protected by media institution owners and the government. He criticized the government for banning the media from covering PIMS in Islamabad. Abdul Hameed Chapra, a senior journalist, said that journalist are becoming government propagandists and are not reporting with honesty. They are propagating the government’s point of view, he added. “Journalists need to unite.”
KPC Secretary Imtiaz Khan Faran said that rulers only want journalists ‘supportive’ to them. The media, from Karachi to Lahore and Islamabad, are under the threat of extremists, terrorists and mafias. “We the people of Pakistan are living under the threat of extremists,” he said. Jawaid Saba, of the electronic media, said that every reporter and cameraman is without life insurance. “Everyday they receive threats from the government,” he said while emphasizing that journalists unite. staff report
