Babar calls for implementing SC verdict in dharna case, reining in state agencies

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Senator Farhatullah Babar has called for urgent implementation of the recent SC verdict in the Faizabad dharna case directing the Information ministry to investigate hurdles created in media circulation in some areas as well as a determination of the mandate of the intelligence agencies.

He stated this while speaking at a protest demonstration organized by RIUJ in Islamabad to honor journalists lashed by General Zia on this day in 1979 and against the systematic economic strangulation of journalists.

“The scars of lashes on the bodies of the journalists are the brightest medallions ever worn in the cause of media freedoms” the PPP leader said while paying tributes to the Journalists Nasir Zaidi, Iqbal Jaffry, Khawar Naeem Hashmi and Masood Khan lashed by Zia regime

The constitutionally guaranteed right to freedom of expression is under siege and journalists were faced with threats to life, livelihood and safety while unannounced censorship staked the land, Farha said.

In a paranoid state undeclared censorship was being justified in name of ‘5th generation war’. The world may or may not be conspiring against us but we are conspiring against ourselves, he said,

Farhatullah Babar said the NGOs were also under attack and called for ending impunity of crimes against journalists by making legislation for the safety and security of journalists.

He said journalists alone could not fight the battle and called for a partnership between Parliament, the National Commission of Human Rights (NCHR), civil society organizations and trade unions. He also proposed a Parliamentary Committee on ‘Freedom of Expression’, revival of resistance journalism and naming and shaming media houses bending over backwards in resorting to self censorship.

The elephant in the room is the unrestrained security agencies he said and called for legislation to rein them in and make them work within their defined parameters. Of the lashed journalists Nasir Zaidi and Iqbal Jafri were also present at the demonstration which was addressed by journalists, human rights activists and political workers.