HYDERABAD: Senior vice chairman of the Paki­stan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) and Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi has said the PTI government doesn’t believe in curbs on the me­­dia, but it wants the media to play its role with responsibility.

Speaking at a press conference on Sunday, he said the changes to the Prev­ention of Electronic Crimes Act (Peca) were not intended to gag the press, as any curbs were not doable in the present era. The real aim was that the media should keep performing with complete freedom with full responsibility, he added.

Holding out an olive branch to the media practitioners, the minister said parties and media were inseparable and the PTI government could sit with the media representatives to discuss the matter and come up with a solution. “There is no harm in discussing it threadbare, as the PTI is not unmindful of media’s role which is being seen the world over,” he added.

Mr Qureshi, accompanied by Maritime Affairs Minister Ali Haider Zaidi, spoke to journalists at the residence of PTI’s Hyder­abad division president Khawand Bux Jahejo before leaving for Karachi, where the ruling party’s Haqooq-i-Sindh March culminated.

Published in Dawn, March 7th, 2022