ISLAMABAD: Caretaker Federal Minister for Information, Broadcasting and Parliamentary Affairs Murtaza Solangi said on Tuesday that 49 foreign journalists issued visas so far for coverage of upcoming elections.
While refuting the rumours that “no foreign journalists and observers would be arriving Pakistan for coverage of upcoming general elections”, he said that these rumours were contrary to the fact.
He was addressing a press conference flanked by Secretary Information and Broadcasting Shahera Shahid, Executive Director General External Publicity Wing Ambreen Jan, Principal Information Officer Dr Tariq Mehmood, and Director General Radio Pakistan Saeed Sheikh.
The minister said that a lot of international media persons had applied for visas to cover the elections. 49 visas (for Islamabad, Lahore, and Karachi) had been issued as of today while 32 requests were under process with many other requests
still being received from different stations of the
world, he added.
He said that these 32 visa applications for coverage of elections were under process which had been received in Pakistan High Commission New Delhi and were being processed due to manual visa system in India for issuing visas.
He said that so far, 174 requests for ECP accreditation cards had been received and processed for foreign media representatives and their associated Pakistani staff who were based in Pakistan.
Responding to a question by media, he said so far 25 applications were under process from the UK alone, eight from the Russian Federation, 13 from Japan, two from South Africa while five from Commonwealth under the category of international observers.
Accreditation cards had also been processed for local Pakistani media houses, Solangi said and added so far 6,065 journalists had been processed including 1,200 from Lahore, 1,470 from Karachi, 1,050 from Peshawar, 600 from Quetta, 355 from Hyderabad, 250 from Faisalabad, and 290 from Multan.
The minister said that even though the last date for application for visas of January 20 had already passed, the relevant institutions of the Election Commission of Pakistan and the Ministry of Information were still receiving visa requests, which would be processed on a case-to-case basis.
Executive Director General EP Wing, Ambreen Jan said visa applications for election coverage were received from 14 countries. She added in total, 81 foreign journalists applied for visas, out of which, 49 had been issued visas while others were under the process.
She said that a Code of Conduct for international media and Observers has been issued by the ECP which had been shared with them. She said that the number of applications for international election observers was 55.
To a question, she said the Press Information Department would set up a media cell for election coverage to provide facilities to the media and a 24-hour election cell will also be operational in the EP Wing to provide facilities to foreign journalists.
Replying to a question, Solangi said that it was the state’s responsibility to protect its citizens and it would take all the measures to provide security to foreign journalists and observers.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2024
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