ISLAMABAD, Dec 3: A spokesman for the People’s Party Parliamentarians (PPP), Senator Farhatullah Babar, has called upon the Musharraf regime to respect press freedom and allow the media to function independently.

He was commenting on a report by the Human Rights Watch which said threats to journalists in Pakistan were escalating.

In a press statement here on Wednesday, the People’s Party Parliamentarians spokesman said the Human Rights Watch released a report stating that Gen Pervez Musharraf’s military government was “becoming increasingly intolerant to press freedom in Pakistan”.

He said the world body also raised the case of Rasheed Azam, a journalist and political activist from Khuzdar, who was arrested on the charge of sedition in August 2002 for publishing a photograph of army personnel beating a crowd of youth.