LAHORE, Oct 5: The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) has expressed its concern over the anti-press ordinances and extended its support to media men’s protest against the laws.

In a joint statement issued here on Saturday, HRCP president and secretary-general Afrasiab Khattak and Hina Jilani, respectively, said that the HRCP shared the concern of the APNS, the CPNE and the PFUJ against the new press laws at the threat of Article 19 of the Constitution. They said that the new laws also threaten the people’s right to freedom of expression and, therefore. the protest campaign announced by the press bodies and journalists’ unions deserved public support. They hoped that saner counsel would still prevent the introduction of any legislation that threatened freedom and the rights of media professionals.

They said that the confirmation of the APNS and then CPNE that the drafts of the newly promulgated defamation law and three other press laws diverged sharply from those which the government had agreed upon with them and that the purpose of the laws was to suppress the freedom of expression and silence dissent within the press. The PFUJ had already condemned the laws, they added.

They said that the new laws came at a time when a new assembly would be formed within days which must the right to draft laws after due debate and the building of a consensus. Their promulgation at this time could neither be considered democratic nor prudent. They deplored what they called a blatant disregard for the understanding of the government reached with the major bodies representing the press of the country and said that it was sad that the defamation and information ordinances and the drafts of the press council and registration of newspapers ordinances would curb the free expression by imposing unprecedented penalties on the owners, editors and working journalists of publications who were found guilty of acts deemed as ‘offences’ under the draconian laws recently adopted by the federal cabinet.

In the worst scenario, they said, such violations of the laws on defamation or even breach of professional code of ethics agreed by the editors but now transformed into a legal document under the law on the press council could lead to imprisonment of editor or the cancellation of the declaration of a publication.

The HRCP officer-bearers said that they failed to understand what was the need for a new defamation law when there existed a defamation law in the country. The new law, they added, would target the working professionals who would be fined Rs50,000 and imprisoned in default of the payment of the fine.