The joint emergency meeting of Council for Newspapers Editors (CPNE) and All Pakistan Newspapers Society (APNS) strongly condemned the police action taken against editors, newsmen, hawkers and printing presses and termed it an attack on press freedom, the press spokesman stated, according to a press release issued here on Wednesday.
The joint meeting chaired by Inqilab Matri Convenor Sindh Committee of CPNE and Kazi Asad Abid Secretary General APNS noted with great regret that normal law of the land was completely overlooked in taking arbitrary actions which were a direct attack on press freedom and worn such action in recent years by a Government that claims to adhere to the constitutional guarantees of freedom of press in Pakistan.
The emergent meeting called for the immediate release of all detained newspaper editors, newsmen and the newspaper hawkers and the withdrawal of all cases registered against them over the past two days. The meeting took very strong notice of the unilateral action in sealing the printing presses where the publications are printed and against whom action was taken. The meeting called for withdrawal of the above action within three days to avoid worsening of Government Press relations.
The Committee decided that a delegation of the two organisations would call upon the Chief Minister Sindh to urge upon the Sindh Government to immediately rescind the arbitrary police action against the press.
The members of the CPNE and APNS expressed grave concern on the actions against editors, pressmen, newspapers and hawkers and felt that unless rescinded, these action would be counter productive. Meeting declared that every CPNE-APNS member condemned terrorism and publication of any literature that created religious disharmony and declared CPNE-APNS members adhere to strict code of ethics on those issues in the national interest.
The meeting recommended that a firm action against various arbitrary measures undertaken against the press by the administration in past three days be taken by the forthcoming meeting of the Standing Committee of the CPNE in Karachi next week.
The representatives of hawkers and printing presses also attended the meeting affected adversely by the administrative action including detention carried out in Karachi. It noted with concern that the police had detained some 80 of their members and the 45,000 members of the newspaper hawker community in Karachi were living in a state of fear.
The newspaper hawker representatives agreed to withdraw their decision to strike and not to lift newspapers taken earlier and said they hoped the CPNE-APNS would jointly move to protect them from administrative abuses especially by the police.
The meeting decided to take up the matter of detained editors, newsmen and newspaper hawkers with the authorities in Sindh on an urgent basis.-PR