APNS warns of ‘gravest threat’ to freedom of press

The APNS president points to 'a dangerous drift towards anarchy'.

KARACHI:

Hameed Haroon, the President of the All Pakistan Newspapers Society (APNS), has expressed concern that “the freedom of press envisioned in Article 19 of the Constitution is facing the gravest threat it has encountered in the past decade.”

The APNS president pointed to ‘a dangerous drift towards anarchy’ and the ‘unbridled behavior by certain sections of the security establishment and the media’, saying that ‘confused signals from the government’ had resulted in damaging the freedom of expression and the press.

“The apparent undue haste with which the Independent Media Corporation and the Independent Newspaper Corporation pointed an accusatory finger at the ISI as being complicit in a murderous attack upon television anchor and columnist Hamid Mir, is only one part of the problem,” he said. He pointed to the request that PEMRA revoke the broadcasting licenses and the declarations of the GEO-Jang group saying ‘the institution of the armed forces has not critically examined the validity of their positions’.

Haroon praised the PM’s announcement of a judicial commission to investigate the attack on Mir. He appealed on behalf of APNS to the COAS ‘to rein in the knee-jerk retaliatory measures that have been initiated by various segments of the armed forces’, adding, “It is grossly unfair that Lt. Gen. Zaheerul Islam or any other member of the security establishment be presumed guilty unless the substance of such guilt can be irrefutably proved in a commission of enquiry.”

Published in The Express Tribune, April 25^th, 2014.