November 26, 2024
By Rehan Piracha
LAHORE
Administration and police officials last week, barred representatives of media watchdog Freedom Network Pakistan, from holding a meeting with journalists over their safety and challenges to media freedom. The FN representatives were ‘ordered’ to leave the district immediately.
The incident took place on November 21, in the Dera Ghazi Khan city, where the meeting was being conducted at a local hotel, as part of regular Freedom Network research initiatives to analyse the state of media freedom in Pakistani provinces and regions and outreach to and dialogues with media practitioners in those regions.
The meeting was interrupted after an official from the district administration, who introduced himself as ‘tehsildar [sub-inspector] Chaudhry Haneef’, accompanied by a Punjab Police official with a badge showing he was ‘SHO Younas’ from the Saddar Police Station.
“Stop the meeting and leave the district,” Chaudhry Haneef reportedly told Iqbal Khattak, executive director of Freedom Network Pakistan. Khattak is also the representative of Reporters Without Borders (RSF) in Pakistan.
According to details, Haneef and Younas failed to show any written official directive, as required under law, or cite any legal provision allowing them to disrupt and force an early end to a lawful, private and peaceful meeting of journalists. Instead, they gruffly asked Khattak, his team members and the local journalists (including a female journalist) there to “wind up the meeting and leave the venue at once.”
“It is ironic because local journalists have been lamenting about widespread intimidation, enforced censorship, self-censorship and threats and violence that they face regularly by personnel from intelligence agencies,” said Khattak while speaking to Voicepk. “And as if to prove their point, district officials raided the premises and disrupted the meeting forcing a premature end to it.”
Khattak is also an official member of the “Punjab Journalists Protection Coordination Committee,” established by the Punjab government in 2023 with support of former caretaker information minister Amir Mir, to investigate crimes of impunity against journalists in Punjab, and provide official support to the journalists’ community. The deputy inspector general (legal) of of Punjab Police heads the committee.
The meeting with journalists from Dera Ghazi Khan, Rajanpur, Muzaffargarh and Layyah districts was part of a series of discussions with leadership of press club, regional unions of journalists, key police officials, political parties and civil society leaders in the South Punjab region – also known as Saraiki Wasaib by natives – to frame recommendations for the Punjab government concerning safety of journalists and state of freedom of expression and freedom of association in Saraiki belt of Punjab province.
DPO claim rebutted
Reportedly, Syed Ali, district police officer of Dera Ghazi Khan, clarified that the event was stopped since the organizers said to be an international non-government organization didn’t have permission from the local administration. Any international organization holding an event in DG Khan was bound to seek prior permission, the DPO explained, adding the organizers failed to show any permission letter granted by the authorities when asked to do so. The officials requested them [journalists] to end the meeting and the representatives of the organization agreed to disperse peacefully, the DPO said.
However, Khattak disputed the DPO’s claim that the event was being organized by an international organization and required necessary permission. “The Freedom Network Pakistan is a locally registered organization in Pakistan,” Khattak said, adding that it earlier held two similar meetings in Bahawalpur and Multan where there was no disruptions or objections from district administrations there.
“Besides, no charge-sheet was framed nor any citation of violation of any law was given by the raiding team except that Tehsildar Haneef quoted the AC [assistant commissioner] as having ordered them,” Khattak added. Pressed to provide any written order from the assistant commissioner, the tehsildar said: “We have verbal orders. You know how the system works.”
The raiding team even did not allow the meeting participants to take their lunch. The tehsildar continued taking instructions on the phone from unknown sources who he was calling every time his assertion was challenged on legal grounds. The raiding officials also kept pressuring the hotel administration to force the meeting participants out by turning out lights and forcing them against serving them lunch after the meeting had been disrupted.
“We met Additional Inspector General Police South Punjab Muhammad Kamran Khan in Multan on 19 November to discuss how the Punjab Journalists Protection Coordination Committee could play its role to protect the journalists in Seraiki belt,” Khattak said.
“We also met former Punjab governor Malik Rafiq Rajwana to seek the support of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-N government in Lahore and he was forthcoming. We also met senior lawyers and civil society leaders in the region on measures that can help stakeholders combat impunity for crimes against journalists in the region,” he added.
Earlier, local authorities forcibly shuttered the Dera Ghazi Khan Press Club in June 2024 after opposition leaders addressed a press conference and sent club president Sher Afghan Buzdar and press club secretary to one-month imprisonment under the 3 MPO [maintenance of public order] law. Both were in attendance at the meeting and alleged severe torture while in custody.
Khattak said the closure of the press club for six months has been a setback to the local population in a region known for its under-development and dismal human development indicators who have no place to air their grievances before the provincial government.
Court orders opening of DG Khan Press Club
On November 25, Dera Ghazi Khan Civil Judge Jahangir Sultan Sheikh ordered the Dera Ghazi Khan Press Club to be de-sealed. The decision came on a petition filed by Dera Ghazi Khan Press Club President Sher Afgan Buzdar. The court suspended the DG Khan Metropolitan Corporation’s order to seal the press club and directed that it be opened immediately.
Sher Afgan Buzdar, while filing a petition in the civil court, had taken the position that the Press Club was duly allotted the area by the provincial government, where the Press Club has been established for the past 60 years. He requested the court to declare the decision of the Metropolitan Corporation to seal it null and void as this authority does not fall within its purview.
The press club lawyer Mian Tariq Mahmood, while giving arguments, told the court that the Metropolitan Corporation does not have the legal right to seal the area allotted by the provincial government. According to him, this move is illegal and tantamount to exceeding the powers.
After the arguments of the lawyers of the parties were completed, the court ruled in favor of the petitioner and ordered the immediate reopening of the press club. The journalists termed the court decision an important step towards the restoration of press freedom in the district.
Press club sealed due to PTI press conference: HRCP report
An HRCP fact-finding mission to investigate the closure of the Dera Ghazi Khan press club in June, allegedly at the behest of the district administration, has found that the premises were most likely sealed in connection with a press conference held there by Pakistan Tehreek Insaaf leaders in April. The mission fact-finding report stated that the district administration appeared to be interfering in the work of the press club’s office bearers—by insisting that the land allotted to the press club in 1970 is ‘illegally occupied’ and calling for fresh press club elections to be held.