KARACHI, July 20: A joint emergency meeting of the Council of Pakistan Newspaper Editors and the All Pakistan Newspaper Society has strongly condemned police action against editors, newsmen, hawkers and printing presses and termed it an attack on the freedom of press. The meeting held here on Wednesday noted with ‘great regret’ that the normal law of the land was completely overlooked in taking arbitrary actions which were a direct attack on press freedom. And the worst attack in recent years, it said, had come from a government which claimed to adhere to constitutional guarantees of press freedom in the country.

The meeting called for immediate release of all detained editors, newsmen and hawkers and withdrawal of all cases registered against them over the past two days.

The meeting took strong notice of the unilateral sealing of presses which print the publications against whom the action had been taken. It called for withdrawal of the action within three days to avert any worsening of government-press relations.

The meeting decided that a delegation of the two organizations would call on the chief minister of Sindh to urge the provincial government to immediately stop arbitrary police actions against press. The meeting declared that CPNE and APNS members condemned terrorism and publication of any literature that created religious disharmony and adhered to the strict code of ethics on these issues in the national interest.

It recommended that the next meeting of the standing committee of the CPNE in Karachi should decide to take firm action against the arbitrary measures.

The meeting was also attended by representatives of hawkers and printing presses affected by the government action. It noted with concern that police had detained about 80 hawkers and some 45,000 members of the community in Karachi were living in a state of fear.

The hawkers’ representatives agreed to withdraw their decision to go on strike and not to lift newspapers and expressed the hope that the CPNE and APNS would jointly move to protect them from administrative abuses, especially by the police.