ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists (PFUJ) has called upon Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif to play a priority role in line with his commitment in his inaugural speech in the National Assembly as the new premier, in resolving myriad of problems being faced by the journalist community.

In a statement issued here on Friday, PFUJ president Shahzada Zulfiqar and Secretary General Nasir Zaidi urged the newly-elected government under Shahbaz Sharif to take concrete measures for revival of the media industry which they said had been floundering due to vindictive policies of the Imran Khan government under which it massively manipulated various laws and regulations for gagging media and suppress freedom of expression and freedom of the press, guaranteed by the Constitution.

“Coercive censorship, persistent press advice, draconian proposals like Pakistan Media Development Authority and mala fide provisions like Section 6 of the federal journalists’ protection bill are examples of how the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf government continued to conspire against democratic and media freedoms,” they said.

“Constitutional guarantees of freedom of expression and right to information are supreme and have overriding effect over all laws and, therefore, the PFUJ demands immediate reversal of the PTI government’s policies of intimidation and undoing of all mala fide provisions in all media-related laws and regulations,” the PFUJ leaders said in the statement.

They said that the previous government, which lost the vote of no-confidence, withheld advertisements of a number of media organisations forcing media houses either to retrench workers and journalists or substantially reduce their salaries and emoluments.

The pandemic added financial hardships to media houses prompting them to make late payment of salaries to their staff or close offices or bureaus altogether without paying dues to their employees,” the PFUJ leaders said. This situation, they said, triggered massive unemployment among media people and not only made them financially weak and vulnerable, a number of them quit journalism and became vendors, and some of them even committed suicide because of the tragic and unbearable situation.

“We call upon Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif to urgently convene a meeting of representative associations of media owners, media managers and media workers and journalists as well as relevant government departments to sort out the adverse issues being faced by the media industry because of the PTI government policies,” the PFUJ leaders said.

Published in Dawn, April 16th, 2022