July 17, 2006	Monday	Jumadi-ul-Sani 20, 1427

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ISLAMABAD, July 16: The Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) has criticised the government for failing to protect working journalists and curtailing freedom of the press.

“The claims of press freedom have been exposed with the killing and kidnapping of journalists,” said Farzana Raja, party’s secretary information and member Punjab assembly.

In a statement issued here on Sunday, she said though President Gen Musharraf had claimed repeatedly that the press enjoyed full freedom in Pakistan, the journalists’ experiences and reports by independent sources has belied his claim.

She said a journalist from the tribal area was kidnapped and killed recently while a TV correspondent was killed allegedly on the directives of a provincial minister in the interior Sindh.

Now a reporter of daily Kawish, Mehr Din Mari, has been arrested and taken to some unknown place.

She recalled that Mr Mari had visited the village of minister of state Mohammad Ali Malkani on June 27 to negotiate a dispute. She said the killing of the journalist was “a result of the conspiracy hatched by the feudal in league with the establishment-sponsored Sindh government.”

Ms Raja said that a BBC report said that 20 journalists have recently been kidnapped in Pakistan and their whereabouts were not yet known. Some of the kidnapped journalists have been killed after subjecting them to torture.

Ms Raja said that if there was any case against Mr Mari, the matter should have been brought to court instead of kidnapping him by trampling human rights.

The government has been violating, systematically, the fundamental rights of media through threats, harassment and arbitrary detentions and arrests, she accused.

“Many journalists were detained without charge, mistreated and tortured,”she said adding that in some cases the establishment has succeeded in removing a number of independent journalists from various publications because they highlighted the misdeeds of this government.

Despite these restrictions and risks to their lives, she said, Pakistani journalists have been performing their duties and many of them have lost their lives in the line of duty.