But as protesters surged forward for the umpteenth time, pelting police with stones and whatever they could lay their hands on, fresh orders made their way to the uniformed contingents of policemen deployed at the venue.

“I was standing on the sidelines, filming the protesters being beaten up when I heard the cry ‘media walan nu maro’ (beat the media people),” Samaa cameraman Khurram Fayyaz told Dawn.

Khurram was one of the first to be attacked. He recounted how, after an initial scuffle that saw his camera broken, he managed to escape in the direction of DSNG vans parked near D-Chowk.

At least 28 mediapersons bear the brunt of police high-handedness “I took refuge in a Dunya TV van, but the driver refused to help and the pursuing policemen caught up with me. They pulled me out of the van and let me have it,” he said as he showed us his back, which was black and blue with baton marks.

Khurram’s head was also bashed in and he was bleeding profusely as he was brought to Pims. He suffered a concussion and needed eight stitches to close the wound.

Samaa TV’s Ajab Khan was also attacked in the melee early on Saturday morning. He was shifted to the Polyclinic. When Dawn tried to reach him, a close friend answered his cellphone and said Ajab had been shifted to Shifa Hospital for a CT scan of his skull, which was badly injured.

Aamir Saeed Abbasi, a Samaa TV reporter, was beaten while trying to rescue fellow cameraman Awais Qazi. Qazi was also filming police beating protesters when he was attacked.

The Waqt TV team came directly in the line of teargas shelling. Cameramen Atif Yousaf and Imran Iqbal, DSNG operator Muhammad Zahid and their driver Jameel Kiyani all fainted from excessive teargas inhalation and only recovered hours later.

Over half a dozen DawnNews cameramen and reporters were also targeted by the police in their high-handed rampage against mediapersons. Hasnain Raza, Assignment Editor at DawnNews’ Islamabad desk, said cameraman Kashif Abbasi’s arm was broken; Noshad Abbasi was baton charged and also received injuries from teargas shells that hit him directly, while reporters Yasir Malik and Samar Abbas were also affected by tear gas.

“Ishfaque Hussain, who had been called in from the Peshawar bureau, was hit with plastic pellets and rubber bullets, while cameramen Imran Chaudhry and Mansoor Ahmed were also assaulted while covering police brutality against PTI and PAT supporters,” he said.

Express News’ Amir Alam, who was carrying his injured cameraman Majid Shah with one arm and flashing his press card with the other, was also attacked.

“The police just pelted us with stones,” he said. He was then beaten severely with batons and received injuries to the head, knee and hands. Express News cameraman Usman Afzal and driver Bakht Zameen were also hurt in clashes with police on Sunday.

Aaj TV’s Rana Tariq was lucky to escape following a near-deadly dose of teargas. But his fellow cameramen Haroon Khurshid and Ghulam Ali were not so lucky. They were surrounded by police and severely beaten as well.

ARY News cameramen Asif Abdullah and Iqbal Zeb and Dunya TV staffers Syed Essa Naqvi, Hassan Ayub, DSNG engineer Adnan and cameraman Anjum Fatemi were also injured in Sunday’s violence against journalists in the Red Zone.

Most of these mediapersons were rushed to the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences on Sunday morning. Tahir Imran, a journalist who was at Pims when mediapersons were first brought to the hospital, offered some hope.

“One of the cameramen, Noshad, told me that he was rescued by an official of the Islamabad police, who pleaded with the men beating him to stop.”

DAWN

These claimants of democracy and the rule of law harassed and manhandled fourth the pillar of democracy to stop them for the objective coverage of the sit-ins. The wrath of these party workers was not limited to only one channel or one gender, but they also harassed a woman journalist, and attacked at least one dozen journalists and supporting staff, besides harming their vehicles and equipment.

The journalists who were harassed and manhandled by the workers of opposition as well as a ruling party, belonged to Aaj TV, ARY News, Geo TV and Samaa TV. These sad attacks on journalists have raised eyebrows of the community across the country and internationally.

It is a widely acknowledged fact that Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) sit-in would have tapered off had the media not been giving extensive coverage to the party chairman’s speeches daily that often ended late evening.

The angry workers are at a loss to understand that the working journalists have to cover and report the issues and events irrespective of what different sections of society may or may not like to read or watch. More importantly the political actors need journalists as much to tell their stories as do the journalists to report such stories. Media plays a crucial role in shaping a healthy democracy. It is the backbone of a democracy. Media makes people aware of various social, political and economical activities happening around the world. It is like a mirror, which shows or strives to show the truth and harsher realities. If media persons close their eyes the government officials will openly do what they want.

First of all to confront a harsh situation was Geo TV as their reporters Azaz Syed, Arshad Waheed, Farhat Jabeen (a woman journalist) and Saif-ur-Rehman and cameramen Shabbir Ahmed and Khurram Shehzad while covering the sit-in on 16th August came across an unfriendly crowed of PTI. The same crowed had given a warm welcome to the reporters and supporting staff of ARY News channel that day, as they thought that channel was giving them their desired coverage.

A PTI activist, Gulfam Khan Pathan, a joint secretary of union council of Hamsheerian district Mansehra of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK) province had said that since their leader Imran Khan had boycotted Geo TV therefore its staff deserved the treatment.

The chief coordinator of PML-N, Siddiq Farooq, at that time termed the manhandling of the TV team ‘undemocratic attitude’.

Jang group has yet claimed that as many as eight reporters, cameramen and drivers had been assaulted by the workers of PTI recently.

Khan, who had in his speeches unintentionally instigated his charged workers against Jang group, condemned after a couple of days on 18th August, the attacks by his workers on Geo reporters.

Geo TV’s digital satellite news gathering (DSNG) van once again came under attack on 21st August right after two days of Khan’s condemning such act by PTI workers. The woman reporter, Farhat Javed, and other media staff were sitting in the van to cover the latest situation of the sit-in. However, due to the attack they had to flee to their office without performing their duties.

Not only opposition marchers were among the attackers but supporters of ruling party Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) had their share also in adding another incident of ‘undemocratic attitude’. Babar Malik of ARY News was attacked by a group of political activists on 21st while covering the Pakistan Muslim League-N rally brought out by its local leaders. The journalist said: “First the angry activists abused the television channel and its anchors and then they started beating me. Although I was not injured seriously, I suffered various bruises.”

The victim demanded the government to provide security to the on-duty journalists as they cannot perform duties under such hostile circumstances.

A Samaa TV crew was also harassed on 24th August at the march by workers who also confiscated their footage.

Aaj TV team was attacked by PTI workers who were managing security arrangements of the demo outside the Parliament House on 24th October. They demanded to check the channel’s DSNG and on denial they climbed the van and roughed up the reporters and support staff. At least four crew members from Aaj News including DSNG engineer Iqbal, cameramen, Usmaan, Iqbal and Samaarat were attacked.

The Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists (PFUJ) at ‘Pro-democracy’ camp on 25th August had deprecated the undemocratic acts of what it called ‘container politicians’ to attack journalists and said that such sit-ins had put an adverse effect on the national economy and paralyzed the capital city including its educational institutes.

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has also called on all sides to respect the role of journalists and media workers. “We note that the organizers of the ‘Freedom March’ have condemned these attacks but they must do more to control their supporters and ensure the safety of journalists covering the protests,” said CPJ Deputy Director Robert Mahoney.

Pakistan Press Foundation