PESHAWAR, Dec 5: Speakers at a seminar on Tuesday demanded of the government to release an inquiry report on the kidnapping and killing of Hayatullah Khan Dawar, a tribal journalist whose body was found in Mirali, North Waziristan, earlier this year.

The seminar, titled “Remembering Hayatullah Shaheed”, was jointly organised at the Peshawar Press Club by the Khyber Union of Journalists, Reporters without Borders (RSF) and Tribal Union of Journalists.

Provincial president of Pakistan People's Party Parliamentarians Rahimdad Khan, Jamaat-i-Islami provincial amir Sirajul Haq, Awami National Party deputy general secretary Afrasiab Khattak, RSF representative Iqbal Khattak, TUJ president Sailab Mehsud and KhUJ president Hazrat Khan spoke on the occasion. They said the country had earned a bad name over the issue of missing journalists and political activists under the military regime.

On the occasion, the Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists released a detailed report on the plight of journalists in the country. Despite repeated demands by the PFUJ, the report says, the federal government has failed to make the judicial commission report on Hayatullah public.

“A Peshawar High Court judge had submitted the report to the government some four months ago and the government's refusal to make the report public indicates foul play in the abduction and murder of Mr Dawar,” it says. The RSF also asked the government to make the report public.