ISLAMABAD: The Paki\u00adstan Federal Union of Journalists (PFUJ) has condemned the government\u2019s decision to impose a ban on advertisements to the Dawn Media Group and termed it a move against media freedom.<\/p>\n

Afzal Butt, who heads his own faction of the PFUJ, and Ayub Jan Sarhandi, its secretary general, said in a statement on Friday the move was against all democratic norms and a violation of Article 19 of the constitution, which guaranteed freedom of expression.<\/p>\n

The PFUJ office-bearers said journalists were aware of their limitations and restrictions laid down in the constitution.<\/p>\n

\u201cHowever, we believe the government is penalising the Dawn Media Group only because some quarters are not happy over the independent views aired by its newspaper and TV channel over the present state of governance,\u201d the statement said.<\/p>\n

The two officer-bearers said an elected government should avoid adopting \u201ctactics of military dictators\u201d by using advertisements as a tool to silence free speech.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt has come to the PFUJ\u2019s notice that some members of the government\u2019s media team constantly interfere in internal policy matters of the newspaper by suggesting display of news reports and even suggesting headlines,\u201d the statement said.<\/p>\n

The PFUJ said journalists would not tolerate curbs on the media and if the government persisted in imposing restrictions, they would have no option but to exercise their right to protest at different forums.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile the Karachi Union of Journalists (KUJ) has also criticised the government for banning advertisements to Dawn Media Group, calling it an attempt to strangulate the media.<\/p>\n

Ashraf Khan, the KUJ president, and General Secretary Ahmed Khan Malik termed the government\u2019s move a continuation of the Tehreek-i-Insaf\u2019s efforts to silence the media.<\/p>\n

\u201cJournalists and other newspaper employees are being laid off and financial lifeline of the media was being choked,\u201d the KUJ said.<\/p>\n

It called for reversing the ban immediately as democracy cannot thrive in the country without a free and independent media.<\/p>\n

Dawn<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ISLAMABAD: The Paki­stan Federal Union of Journalists (PFUJ) has condemned the government’s decision to impose a ban on advertisements to the Dawn Media Group and termed it a move against media freedom. Afzal Butt, who heads his own faction of the PFUJ, and Ayub Jan Sarhandi, its secretary general, said in a statement on Friday […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[9],"tags":[17,4,3038,52,88],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistanfoemonitor.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7956"}],"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=7956"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pakistanfoemonitor.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7956\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistanfoemonitor.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7956"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistanfoemonitor.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7956"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistanfoemonitor.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7956"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}