(PPF/IFEX) – On 28 January 1999, police in Sindh province registered cases of “sedition” against “Jang”, “Amn”, and “Parcham” (local Urdu dailies), for publishing an advertisement of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), a political party in the province. The papers were charged with sedition aimed at inciting people against the state. Cases have been registered […]
(PPF/IFEX) – On 28 January 1999, police in Sindh province registered cases
of “sedition” against “Jang”, “Amn”, and “Parcham” (local Urdu dailies), for
publishing an advertisement of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), a
political party in the province. The papers were charged with sedition aimed
at inciting people against the state.
Cases have been registered against the editors, publishers and printers of
these dailies. The persons named in the first information reports (FIRs)
include Mir Shakil-ur Rehman, chief executive, editor-in-chief and publisher
of “Jang”, MQM senator Ajmal Dehlvi, editor and publisher of “Amn”, and
Aamir Liaqat and Mehmooda Sultana, editor and publisher, respectively, of
“Parcham”.
The charges consist of “enciting or attempting to encite hatred, contempt or
dissatisfaction towards the federal or provincial government, by words,
either spoken or written, or signs or visible representation or otherwise.”
The Jang Group of Newspapers, owned by Mir Shakil-ur Rehman, is engaged in a
legal fight with the government. Currently, the groups’ newsprint and
accounts are frozen, disrupting the publications’ operations. The government
has charged the Jang Group with tax evasion.
