Daily Times

The journalist community have called upon the Sindh government to fill the vacant position of chairperson of Commission for Journalists Protection and Other Media Practitioners (CJPMP) to urgently make the provincial law for protection of media and its practitioners effective and operational.

The call was made during a meeting of Pakistan Journalists Safety Coalition (PJSC)-Sindh chapter held here on Monday with Aamir Latif in the chair. Justice (Retd) Nazar Akbar resigned in September as CJPMP chairperson after the then caretaker government notified his appointment early this year. “This meeting of PJSC-Sindh chapter demands of the Sindh government to promptly announce new chairperson of CJPMP after the incumbent chairperson’s resignation,” the PJSC Meeting participants demanded unanimously, according to a press release issued by Freedom Network here on Tuesday.

“In absence of the commission’s chairperson the law is rendered ineffective. The current situation is not good for journalists in Sindh province,” CJPMP member Jabbar Khattak told the PJSC meeting. The meeting also expressed concerns at the Sindh government’s abrupt “change of heart” forcing the incumbent chairperson of the commission to resign under pressure. It said that the commission needs to continue to operate even if one or more persons, including the chairpersons are not available for whatever reasons.

Freedom Network Executive Director Iqbal Khattak told the meeting that three years since the Sindh Assembly passed the law, making the province first in Pakistan to legislate on protection of journalists but the commission was struggling to work because of logistic reasons. From Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists Former general-secretary Mazhar Abbas, Karachi Press Club president Saeed Sarbazi, PFUJ (Dastoor group) General Secretary AH Khanzada, media development expert Adnan Rehmat and media laws expert Aftab Alam attended the PJSC meeting which regularly meets to review the CJPMP working while monitoring the Sindh government’s measures aiming to combat impunity for crimes against journalists in the province.