Pakistan PM Orders Withdrawal of FIR against Journalists
By 'Pakistan Times' Special Correspondent

ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz Wednesday directed Secretary Interior Syed Kamal Shah to immediately withdraw cases registered against the journalists.

The Prime Minister in a directive to the Interior Secretary asked for withdrawal of the First Information Report (FIR) filed at the Secretariat Police Station against several Journalists from Rawalpindi and Islamabad for violating Section 144, a press note by the Press Information Department said.

The FIR was registered against the Journalists on Monday night for protesting against the new amendments made in the PEMRA Ordinance.

Protection

Meanwhile, Minister of State for Information and Broadcasting Tariq Azeem said on Wednesday that the government respects the journalists and will provide protection to them.

He was talking to the journalists after a media boycott of the Press Gallery. Minister for Parliamentary Affairs Dr Sher Afgan Niazi and Minister of State for Law and Justice Shahid Akram Bhinder were also with him.

Tariq Azeem said that the government strongly condemns threats to the journalists and investigation were being held.

About the PEMRA Amendment Ordinance he said that as the matter is sub judice he was not in a position to discuss it in detail. However he said the ordinance will be presented in the National Assembly as a bill and it will be the prerogative of the assembly to approve or reject it.

Dr Sher Afgan said that members of the NA and Senate have already moved resolutions in this connection and when the bill will be discussed in the Parliament it will become law only if it is approved, otherwise it will lapse after 120 days.

He said that deliberations on PEMRA rules were held for five months with the stakeholders and they all approved them.

Earlier representatives of the journalists community presented their viewpoint before the ministers.

Press Gallery Incident

Another report says that while deploring the uproar in press gallery, the government on Wednesday lashed out at opposition members for supporting the journalists in their act in the press gallery and supported the Speaker to take action as provided in the rules.

Federal Ministers Dr Sher Afgan Niazi and Minister of State for Interior, Zafar Iqbal Warraich described the incident as 'regrettable' and sought action from the chair.

It was apparent during the arguments in the House that some people sitting in the press gallery were subjugated by the journalists and the opposition parties had supported their act.

Some persons kept sitting in the press gallery when the journalists had walked out of the gallery to protest the PEMRA Ordinance and registeration of cases against their fellow journalists.

Minister for Parliamentary Affairs Dr Sher Afgan took exception to opposition's support to the journalists and urged the speaker to act according to the rules.

"While the journalists were protesting in the press gallery, the opposition members were applauding from the floor of the house and trampling its sanctity," he told the National Assembly.

The people of their constituencies, he added, send them to the assembly for their representation but they do not fulfill their their obligations.

"Instead they became part to the crime and are responsible for the contempt of the house," he added.

He said under the rules, the speaker has the power to either suspend the members or bar them attending the proceedings for a certain period of time.

"You must take guarantee from them that such incident will never happen again before allowing them sit in the house," he suggested to the chair.

Sher Afgan said the speaker had run the house with great wisdom and has always been very tolerant but added the time has come that he should punish those who trampled the sanctity of the house.

"You are the custodian of the house and now it is upto you to maintain it," Sher Afgan said.

He recalled that he has been a member of the National Assmebly since 1985, but has never press turn so ugly.●