LAHORE: The Council of Pakistan Newspaper Editors (CPNE) has rejected the proposal of media courts and vowed to resist all sorts of censorship and pressures being exerted on the media.
This was decided in a meeting held here on Wednesday presided over by CPNE President Arif Nizami. The meeting was attended by Secretary-General Dr Jabbar Khattak, Vice Presidents Sardar Khan Niazi, Irshad Ahmed Arif and Anwar Sajidi, Atta-ur-Rehman, Aijaz-ul-Haq, Ayaz Khan, Kazim Khan, Ali Ahmed Dhalon, Khalil-ur-Rehman, Malik Liaquat Ali, Owais Raazi, Waqas Tariq Farooq, Akmal Chohan, Najmul Hassan Arif, Ahmed Shafiq, Zubair Mehmood Khalid, Imtiaz Roohani, Bashir Ahmed Khan, Abid Aleem, Usman Ghani Saifee, Aslam Mian and other senior members and editors.
“Media is facing immense pressure, hurdles, advisories and censorship indirectly but no government department is ready to take the ownership and responsibility of such restriction,” stated resolution passed by the CPNE’s standing committee meeting.
“Free media is vital for the political, economic, defence, and cultural stability of the country as it provides a platform to express and disseminate various type of information and opinions with all kinds of diversity; thus creates enabling environment for a tolerant society,” the resolution further said.
“In the past, people were compelled to rely upon foreign media due to tough censorship on the local media, and resultantly, the country faced huge losses on the defence, political and economic fronts,” the resolution added.
CPNE denounced and disassociated itself from the media malpractitioners and said that such elements should be brought to justice.
The meeting also decided to launch a media defence campaign by holding media defence conferences for the protection and freedom of media in all provincial capitals, including Islamabad.
While condemning the ban on Daily Nai Baat’s advertisements, the council demanded the restoration of the adverts.
