The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has called for vigilance to protect journalists' safety in Pakistan after the latest alarming spike in abductions of journalists which has ended with the release of Wiqar Kiyani, a journalist working for the Guardian newspaper of the United Kingdom, after his mysterious disappearance on July 6 from his home in Islamabad.
Kiyani's case represents the third in a sequence, which also involved the abduction of the journalists Pir Zubair Shah and Akhtar Soomoro, in the Mohmand agency area of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) in Pakistan.
IFJ urged state agencies and insurgent groups to respond positively to the appeals made by PFUJ and other professional organisations, and to honour the valuable precedent established in these cases, that journalists are non-combatants entitled to equal protection from all sides in a conflict.
"We are worried though, that the culture of hostility and physical violence against media workers is an entrenched fact in Pakistan's more troubled areas," said IFJ Asia Pacific.
"We call upon the federal and provincial governments in Pakistan to heed the call made by the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) that immediate safety measures be instituted for journalists, especially those working in the tribal areas, allowing them to work without fear or intimidation from state agents or non-state actors."
