KARACHI, Jan 17: The Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists (PFUJ) has criticised the government’s move of stopping advertisements to daily Dawn in order to ‘punish the paper’ for its independent editorial policy.

The PFUJ, in a statement on Wednesday, said that on the one hand the government had failed to ensure implementation of the wage award, on the other, it had blocked advertisements to a newspaper just because it had been critical of its policies.

It criticised the practice of using advertisements as a lever to put pressure on the media.

The PFUJ appealed to newspaper owners and organisations like the APNS and the CPNE to resolve problems of newspaper employees so that a ‘meaningful struggle’ could be launched for media freedom.

The PFUJ condemned the murder of an editor near Sukkur and the kidnapping of another in Peshawar. “These incidents have again underlined the growing insecurity of journalists.”

It called upon the government to arrest those responsible for the murder of the editor of daily Nijat, Makhdoom Rafiq. The murder of the editor had added to a long list of ‘attacks on the media’, the statement added.

The PFUJ also expressed concern over the kidnapping of the editor of daily Express, Peshawar, Suhail Qalandar, and his friend Niaz Mehmond.