Articles by Pakistan Press Foundation
Journalist receives death threat
(PPF/IFEX) – A leader of an Islamic militant organisation, Lashkar-i-Islam, in the Khyber Agency of Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), issued a death threat to a local journalist on 22 May 2007. Mangal Bagh declared that Nasrullah Afridi, a correspondent with “Daily Mashriq” and “The News”, was to be “killed with missiles”, and announced […]
Editor brutally beaten over coverage of judicial crisis
(PPF/IFEX) – On 18 May 2007, unidentified individuals assaulted and injured Shakeel Ahmad Turabi, editor-in-chief of the SANA news agency, in the Pakistani capital of Islamabad. In a complaint filed with the local police, Turabi said two men intercepted his car, dragged him a few yards off the road and then beat him. The assailants […]
Armed activists attack private television channel
(PPF/IFEX) – Aaj TV, a leading television channel in Pakistan, came under gunfire attack for almost six hours on 12 May 2007 during clashes between government supporters and opposition activists that took the lives of 36 persons in Karachi, the country’s largest city. The attackers also set ablaze vehicles in the parking lot of the […]
Supreme Court issues guidelines tightly restricting media coverage of ongoing judicial crisis
(PPF/IFEX) – The Supreme Court of Pakistan has issued guidelines on media coverage of the judicial proceedings relating to the presidential reference against Chief Justice of the Supreme Court Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry. A statement issued by the Supreme Court on 9 May 2007 prohibited discussions, comments and write-ups “likely to interfere with the legal process, […]
Taliban impose ban on music in North Waziristan and Bajaur tribal areas, threaten CD shop owners, set up military checkpoints to remove cassette players from vehicles
(PPF/IFEX) – On 7 May 2007, the local Taliban Shoora (council) imposed a ban on the sale of CDs and cassettes and on the playing of music in buses and coaches in the North Waziristan tribal areas of Pakistan bordering Afghanistan, while armed militants set up checkpoints on roads in different parts of the Bajaur […]
Three television news channels suspended for six hours in Sindh province
(PPF/IFEX) – Cable networks in major cities of Pakistan’s southern Sindh province suspended the transmissions of three leading television news channels for six hours on 5 May 2007. The transmissions of Geo, ARY and Aaj television networks were suspended in Karachi, Hyderabad, Nawabshah, Sukkur and Mirpurkhas. Despite its denials, it is widely believed that transmissions […]
Homemade bombs damage music and video shops following Taliban warning
(PPF/IFEX) – Unidentified militants targeted music and video shops with crude homemade explosive devices on 4 May 2007, damaging a number of shops in two markets in the town of Charsadda, in Pakistan’s North West Frontier Province (NWFP) bordering Afghanistan. Fortunately, there was no loss of life. The first explosion occurred at the Ayaz Market […]
Police in Pakistani Kashmir harass television station employees to force withdrawal of news story
(PPF/IFEX) – Police in the city of Mirpur, the commercial centre of Pakistani administrated Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK), harassed the staff of the bureau of Aapna Des, a Bradford-based, Pahari-language television channel. The police wanted the channel to stop showing news reports regarding the withdrawal of official facilities provided by the government to an […]