Saleem Safi, a prominent Pakistani journalist<\/span>, columnist and anchorperson has been the target of abuse and harassment on social media after a comment he made former Prime Minister<\/span>\u00a0Nawaz Sharif.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In a TV show<\/span>\u00a0on August 19,<\/span>\u00a0Safi claimed that\u00a0<\/span>during his tenure\u00a0<\/span>as prime minister,\u00a0<\/span>Nawaz Sharif had\u00a0<\/span>borne<\/span>\u00a0the expenses of PM\u00a0<\/span>house from his own pocket. \u00a0<\/span>The jo<\/span>urnalist also posted\u00a0<\/span>some pictures of Nawaz Sharif\u2019s paid receipt bills from different events<\/span>\u00a0on Twitter<\/span>.\u00a0<\/span>The\u00a0<\/span>cheques<\/span>\u00a0were also shown to the incumbent Prime M<\/span>inister Imran Khan. However according to later reports,\u00a0<\/span>docume<\/span>nts available online contradict Saleem Safi\u2019s statement and show that\u00a0<\/span>taxpayers paid the expenditures of PM house not Nawaz Sharif.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

S<\/span>ocial media users especially supporters of ruling Pakistan\u00a0<\/span>Tehreek-i-Insaaf<\/span>\u00a0(PTI)\u00a0party<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>started<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>a campaign against\u00a0<\/span>the\u00a0<\/span>journalist<\/span>, trolling him for his claims<\/span>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

On August 27,\u00a0<\/span>Peshawar Press Club and Khyber Union of Journalists also organized a protest demonstration against\u00a0<\/span>what they said was\u00a0<\/span>character assassination of Saleem Safi\u00a0<\/span>on social media.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

While talking to the protestors, president of Khyber Union of Journalists,\u00a0<\/span>Saiful<\/span>\u00a0Islam\u00a0<\/span>Saifi<\/span>\u00a0said, “This is not the way to confront journalists for reporting facts. Journalists like Saleem Safi cannot be silenced through such tactics.”\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Rawalpindi-Islamabad Union of Journalists (RIUJ), also condemned the campaign against Saleem Safi and declared it an attack on freedom of expression.\u00a0<\/span>Character assassination of a senior journalist is a serious violation of freedom of expression.\u201d<\/p>\n

While talking to PPF<\/span>\u00a0the Secretary General of Pakistan Federal Union Journalists (PFUJ),\u00a0<\/span>Ayub<\/span>\u00a0Jan\u00a0<\/span>Sirhandi<\/span>\u00a0condemned the ongoing social media campaign against Saleem Safi and assured that they will take a step in solidarity with journalist.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Saleem Safi, a prominent Pakistani journalist, columnist and anchorperson has been the target of abuse and harassment on social media after a comment he made former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.  In a TV show on August 19, Safi claimed that during his tenure as prime minister, Nawaz Sharif had borne the expenses of PM house from his own pocket.  The journalist also posted some pictures […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[9],"tags":[4,328],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistanfoemonitor.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6990"}],"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\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistanfoemonitor.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6990"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pakistanfoemonitor.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6990\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistanfoemonitor.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6990"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistanfoemonitor.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6990"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistanfoemonitor.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6990"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}