KARACHI, March 10: Declaring the government ban on advertisements to The Nation and Nawa-i-Waqt newspapers as contradictory to the spirit of freedom of the press , the Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists has demanded that this step should be immediately revoked so that a culture of freedom of expression can be developed in the country.

In a statement on Wednesday, PFUJ president Ahfazur Rahman said the ban was an encroachment on the right to difference of opinion, which would greatly damage democratic values. According to the country's constitution, all schools of thought had a right to propagate their ideologies and this right also provides a solid foundation for freedom of the press.

The statement pointed out until now no clarification had come forth from the government to explain the reason behind the ban due to which the general belief was that the papers were being punished for differing with government policies on some issues.

No government was entitled to make such lopsided decisions. If it had a complaint against the papers it should have gone to a court of law, the statement said.

It asked that the ban be revoked to prove that unlike past governments, the present administration was not using government advertisements as a means of putting pressure on newspapers.