LONDON: Senior\njournalists Hamid Mir and Mujib-ur-Rehman Shami have said that the arrest of\nGeo and Jang Editor-in-Chief Mir Shakil-ur-Rahman in a 34 years old case by the\nNational Accountability Bureau (NAB) is a demonstration of how draconian laws\nare being used to punish the people the government doesn\u2019t like to bring media\nunder control using completely unethical means.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Both Hamid Mir and\nMr Shami were speaking as guests online of Overseas Pakistani Journalists\nAction Committee (OPJAC) which has members from UK, Europe and North America.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Addressing the\njournalists\u2019 body on Zoom conferencing, senior journalist Hamid Mir voiced his\nconcerns over how both Pakistan and India were becoming less tolerant of\nobjective journalism and had both fallen in the latest Press Freedom Index.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hamid Mir discussed\nhow India was taking advantage of the COVID-19 lockdown and increased its\npropaganda and hostilities in Kashmir. “India is inciting violence against\nPakistan in a mechanised way. While the world is focused on fighting COVID-19,\nIndia is using terror groups to destablise Pakistan by attacking Pakistan\nsecurity forces, recent attacks in Balochistan are a proof. In occupied\nKashmir, India has silenced media to further suppress Kashmiris demanding\nfreedom,” he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hamid Mir said that\nregional dynamics would also impact press freedom in Pakistan but he raised\nconcern over how some individual journalists including him were targeted over\nthe years on false grounds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Talking about the\nrecent controversy over Maulana Tariq Jamil’s comments, Hamid Mir said that it\nwas unfortunate that a social media campaign was orchestrated against him,\nKamran Shahid, Muhammad Malick, Javed Chaudhry and others even though he did\nnot even ask Tariq Jamil to apologise. \u201cI never asked Maulana Tariq Jamil to\napologise but a false campaign was started making allegations,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When asked whether\nthe government should make legislation against such harassment, Hamid Mir\nadvised against it explaining that such legislation would instead be used as a\nsword against journalists who wanted to continue objective reporting and\ninstead advised journalists to use the courts to seek justice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The issue of\nJang\/Geo Editor-in-Cheif’s imprisonment was also discussed with both Hamid Mir\nand Mujib-ur-Rehman Shami condemning it as an attack on press freedom in\nPakistan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mujib-ur-Rehman\nShami explained how he had also been a victim of false cases in the past and\nstrongly condemned the illegal detention of Mir Shakeel-ur-Rahman. He mentioned\nhow the case seemed to be mala fide considering that it was almost 40 years old\nand how no case had been brought against MSR even after more than 60 days of\ndetention. He said there was unanimity of opinion that there is no case against\nMSR and that he\u2019s being punished to satisfy the egos of a few powerful people\nwho are in incharge and can do what they like.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shami said that he\nhad seen different phases of media and the challenges it faced but the\nchallenges confronted currently are unique. He said the current government is\nresponsible for enforcing a financial crackdown on media to cut it to size but\nat the same time the whole country is suffering as a result of the economic\nmeltdown. He said the crises will further increase in coming days.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Overseas\nPakistani Journalists Action Committee is an independent body of journalists\nformed with journalists from multiple media organisations to address the\nconcerns of journalists. The committee demanded that the government should\nannounce a financial package for media workers as it had done for other\nindustries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

LONDON: Senior journalists Hamid Mir and Mujib-ur-Rehman Shami have said that the arrest of Geo and Jang Editor-in-Chief Mir Shakil-ur-Rahman in a 34 years old case by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) is a demonstration of how draconian laws are being used to punish the people the government doesn’t like to bring media under control […]<\/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],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistanfoemonitor.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8993"}],"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=8993"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pakistanfoemonitor.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8993\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistanfoemonitor.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8993"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistanfoemonitor.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8993"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistanfoemonitor.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8993"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}