PESHAWAR/ LAHORE: Members of the journalist community demanded the release of the Jang Group Editor-in-Chief, Mir Shakil-ur-Rahman, as they continued the protest against his arrest on Tuesday. They were carrying banners and placards inscribed with slogans as they gathered at the Daily Jang, The News and Geo TV offices.
They raised chants against the five-month-long detention of the head of the largest media group of the country and hostile media policy of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government.
Daily Jang Resident Editor Arshad Aziz Malik, Shakeel Farman Ali, Sabz Ali Shah, Ihtesham Toru, Gohar Ali, Qaiser Khan and others spoke on the occasion. They flayed the government for detaining Mir Shakil-ur-Rahman for the last 174 days on false charges. The speakers said the PTI government was victimising political rivals and the free media to hide its own poor governance. They said the Jang Group and its head Mir Shakil-ur-Rahman were facing the wrath of the rulers for promoting independent journalism. The protesters said the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) did not follow the law while arresting Mir Shakil-ur-Rahman.
They were critical of the NAB role and said it was not impartial in actions against corruption. The speakers said NAB was busy gagging the opposition political parties and independent media instead of moving against massive corruption scandals.
LAHORE: Senior journalists, civil society leaders, office-bearers of media unions and trade union of Jang Group on Tuesday accused the PTI government of undermining the media freedom by detaining Jang-Geo Editor-in-Chief Mir Shakil-ur-Rahman in a politically-motivated case for the last 171 days without finding any proof of their charges or making any progress in investigations.
Staging a demonstration outside the Jang offices on Tuesday at a protest camp of the workers of Geo, Jang and The News employees for the 149th consecutive day, they lamented that Prime Minister Imran Khan, who came to power claiming to make Pakistan a Madina-like state, has been victimizing Mir Shakil-ur-Rahman for exposing the corruption and bad governance of the PTI government. They said there was neither any progress in investigations into the corruption charges of 35-year-old property exchange case against him nor any formal case was registered. The participants termed it a blatant attack on media freedom, chanted slogans against the ‘fascist PTI regime’ and condemned the illegal and anti-media tactics of the NAB. They demanded that the chief justice of Pakistan should take suo motu action against this gross injustice against Mir Shakil-ur-Rahman’s illegal arrest, which is a direct attack on the freedom of expression and liberty of media. They vowed to continue struggle for Mir Shakil-ur-Rahman's release till his freedom and warned PM Imran Khan to reign in the NAB from further victimization of Mir Shakil-ur-Rahman.
They demanded immediate release of Mir Shakil-ur-Rahman and warned that any direct action could be taken against the PTI government to deter it from dictatorial policies to curb freedom of expression and force economic murder of media workers for long.
They also threatened to launch an anti-government movement across the country if he was not released.
Those who participated in the protest included Secretary General of Jang Workers Union Farooq Malik, News Editor of Pakistan Times Zaheer Anjum, Awais Qarni, Mrs Aisha, Shafiq Ahmad, Aziz Sheikh, Munawwar Hussain, Shahid Aziz, Muhammad Naeem, Muhammad Ali, Hafiz Asad, Akmal Bhatti, Afzal Abbas, Mushtaq and others.
RAWALPINDI/ KARACHI: Protests for the release of Mir Shakil-ur-Rahman were also held in Karachi and Rawalpindi, in which large number of group's workers and journalists participated.