KARACHI, Nov 23: The Pakistan People’s Party on Friday staged a demonstration outside the Karachi Press Club to express solidarity with journalists who recently faced police brutalities when they protested against curbs on the media.
Unlike other protest demonstrations that faced a police crackdown on account of the violation of Section 144 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, the PPP protest failed to incur the administration’s wrath, fuelling speculation that police are reluctant to brutalise the activists of a political party that may come into power after the Jan 8 elections.
A large number of PPP workers carrying party flags and portraits of the PPP chairperson, Benazir Bhutto, raised slogans against emergency and in favor of a free media and those judges who refused to take an oath on the Provisional Constitution Order (PCO).
PPP central information secretary Sherry Rehman, Sindh PPP secretary-general Nafees Siddiqui, Sindh information secretary Dr Fehmida Mirza and Karachi division president Rashid Rabbani addressed the gathering.
A heavy contingent of police was deployed outside the KPC and blockades were placed on the main road leading to the press club.
PPP central information secretary Sherry Rehman, a former MNA, said that the PPP had always stood for a free media. She added that the party would work alongside journalists struggling against dictatorship.
Referring to the PPP, she said that the largest party of Pakistan had assured the journalists that they were not alone in their struggle.
She claimed that a PPP government in the past had introduced laws for a free media in Pakistan.
The provincial secretary-general of the PPP, Nafees Siddiqui, said that President Gen Pervez Musharraf should immediately lift emergency, restore the constitution and reinstate the judges deposed following their refusal to take an oath on the PCO.
He alleged that emergency was clamped by Gen Musharraf to prolong his rule and rig forthcoming elections in favour of the PML-Q.
Mr Siddiqui slammed the clampdown on the media and maintained that without a free media the country would not make progress. Sindh PPP information secretary Dr Fehmida Mirza said the PPP would continue its struggle for the freedom of the judiciary, the media and parliament. She said her party would bring the country back on the track of democracy often derailed by military intervention. She added that no military dictator had the power to deprive citizens of their right to information and freedom of expression and free press.
A large number of activists and office-bearers of the PPP Karachi Division, including Waqar Mehdi, Ejaz Durrani, Afaq Shahid, Lateef Mughal, Habib Junedi, Masroor Ashan , women wing president Farazana Baloch, former MPAs Shazia Marri and Nasreen Chandio and other PPP ticket holders participated in the protest demonstration.
