The Pakistan Peoples' Party Parliamentarians (PPPP) has expressed grave concern over the plight of journalists during the first six months of 2006.
In a statement issued here on Sunday, PPP-Parliamentarians central information secretary MNA Sherry Rehman condemned the situation, terming it a direct consequence of the military regime and its disastrous anti-democracy policies.
The period witnessed cold-blooded murders of two journalists while many were subjected to kidnapping, torture under detention, and fatal attacks, she said.
The regime had left no stone unturned in breaking the back of free speech and independent media culture, she said.
Rehman added recent statistics released by international media organisations carried ample testimony to the fact that the military regime had tried to create a milieu full of fear by means of its callous and brutal policies.
It was terrorising journalists of mettle, who were exposing its open and shut corruption and public-unfriendly policies, she said.
She said the regime's high-handedness with journalists held a clear message to the media and civil society in Pakistan that security of life of the common people was under threat.
Half of the country had become a no-go area for journalists. Nobody knew what was going on, particularly in Northern Areas and Balochistan where the regime had launched military operations that had led to gross human rights violations, she said.
Rehman demanded the military regime must immediately put a stop to its excesses against journalists.
She expressed apprehension the government's non-democratic and opaque attitude put a question mark on its involvement in the killing, kidnapping, attacks, detention and oppression of journalists, who were risking their lives to tell the truth to the nation.