PESHAWAR, March 19: Speakers here at a seminar urged civil society to support the media in strengthening democracy and democratic values in the country.

The participants were of the view that the media was the backbone of all strata of society including lawyers, NGOs, workers and   academics who should come forward to strengthen it so that its working conditions could be improved and investigative journalism could be encouraged.

The seminar arranged under the Democracy and Human Rights Programme (DHRP) was addressed by journalists, human rights activists, politicians and labour leaders.

Senior journalist  Raheemullah Yousufzai highlighted problems faced by journalists community. He said that although newsmen were a voice of dissent, but who was going to raise voice for them as they had been deprived of their rights and had to work in the worst kind of working conditions.

The regional chief of International Law Group,  Ms Sameena Nazir, said that the media people should avoid subjective thinking in their reports. She said: “The media is considered a voice of the voiceless as through it problems of people have been highlighted.”

She said that instead of covering influential people and high-ups, the media should highlight plight of the masses as they had no source to raise their voice. Ms Nazir was of the opinion that there should be a universal code of conduct as sometimes newsmen overstepped their professional obligations and rights and violated privacy of an individual.

Columnist Abaseen Yousufzai said that the media had to play an effective role in highlighting ills plaguing the democratic culture in society.

A former provincial chief of the Qaumi Jamhoori Party, Mukhtiar Bacha, said that the presence of such large number of armed forces would definitely result in involvement of army in politics and scuttling the democratic process in the country.

Muhammad Tahseen of the South Asia Partnership and Bushra Gohar of the Human Resource Management and Development Centre urged newsmen to take journalism as a mission. They demanded that the media   and the ordinary people should be provided the right to have access to information.