Information Minister Marriyum Aurangzeb said on Tuesday that journalist Azam Chaudhry \u2014 who is reported to have claimed he was \u201ctaken off the air\u201d from the Pakistan Television Corporation (PTV) for asking a question related to press freedom from the prime minister \u2014 was never an employee of the state-run broadcaster.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe is and has only been a member of an issues-based analyst pool for PTV. He has not been removed from this pool and has not been asked to leave. Nothing of the sort has been communicated to him,\u201d the minister said.<\/p>\n

Aurangzeb\u2019s clarification comes after several local media outlets reported that Chaudhry, who is also the president of the Lahore Press Club, was \u201ctold he was no longer with PTV\u201d.<\/p>\n

According to a report published in the Express Tribune, the journalist received the message after he attended a press conference in Lahore, where he had asked a question from Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif regarding \u201cdiminishing space for freedom of speech\u201d in the country.<\/p>\n

The report said Chaudhry had asked a two-part question from the premier in which he had pointed out restrictions on the media across the country and enquired when these curbs would end.<\/p>\n

In response to the journalist, the premier had expressed his disapproval of the restriction but then deflected the query to Aurangzeb.<\/p>\n

The Express Tribune report quoted Chaudhry as saying that \u201che was informed that PTV would be doing a panel program from the Governor House after the PM\u2019s press conference, where he would also be joined by Sajjad Mir and Salman Ghani\u201d.<\/p>\n

But he was told after the press conference that he was \u201coff aired and told that he was no longer with PTV\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe journalist said that he was part of the pioneer team of the program \u2018Ba-Khaber\u2019 that started airing last year. He added that according to the last communication he had with PTV, he was not with them officially as there was nothing given to him in writing as he was on contract and they were not bound to give him any written intimation,\u201d the report added.<\/p>\n

Responding to the reports today, Aurangzeb said they were \u201ccompletely false and baseless\u201d.<\/p>\n

Chaudhry is still a \u201cpart of PTV Lahore analyst pool\u201d, she maintained.<\/p>\n

She stated that the view and opinions of the journalist were \u201cknown to the government\u201d when he was invited to the press conference.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf the government wanted to suppress his voice or questions, he would not have been invited and allowed to ask his questions. The prime minister answered his questions in detail. I answered his questions as well,\u201d the minister added.<\/p>\n

She went on to say that unlike the previous PTI government and its \u201cfascist\u201d prime minister \u2014 whom Aurangzeb claimed was declared a \u201cpredator\u201d by Reporters Without Borders \u2014 PM Shehbaz and the incumbent government \u201cfirmly believed in media freedom\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe PTI government used to only allow selected reporters and journalists to its fascist PM\u2019s press conferences. The present government ensures that PM Shehbaz Sharif\u2019s press conferences are open to all reporters and journalists.\u201d<\/p>\n

The information minister further said the reports published on the matter did not take the government\u2019s point of view into account. \u201cThis is unprofessional and falls short of journalistic ethics and standards,\u201d Aurangzeb added.<\/p>\n

Other Sources: The Express Tribune<\/a><\/p>\n

Source: \u00a0Dawn<\/a><\/p>

The post Government denies sacking journalist for asking Prime Minister Shehbaz question on press freedom<\/a> first appeared on Pakistan Press Foundation (PPF)<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

Information Minister Marriyum Aurangzeb said on Tuesday that journalist Azam Chaudhry \u2014 who is reported to have claimed he was \u201ctaken off the air\u201d from the Pakistan Television Corporation (PTV) for asking a question related to press freedom from the prime minister \u2014 was never an employee of the state-run broadcaster. \u201cHe is and has [\u2026]<\/p>\n

The post Government denies sacking journalist for asking Prime Minister Shehbaz question on press freedom<\/a> first appeared on Pakistan Press Foundation (PPF)<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[9],"tags":[4,3239],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistanfoemonitor.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11487"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistanfoemonitor.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistanfoemonitor.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistanfoemonitor.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistanfoemonitor.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11487"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/pakistanfoemonitor.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11487\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11488,"href":"https:\/\/pakistanfoemonitor.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11487\/revisions\/11488"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistanfoemonitor.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11487"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistanfoemonitor.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11487"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistanfoemonitor.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11487"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}