Pakistan Press Foundation

(PPF/IFEX) – On 29 December 2001, the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA), the regulatory body for cable television operators, issued directions to cable television operators to stop the transmission of Indian channels. The PTA said the decision was taken in view of the one-sided, poisonous Indian propaganda by that country’s channels aimed at tarnishing Pakistan’s image. […]

(PPF/IFEX) – On 8 December 2001, at around 8:30 p.m. (local time), approximately a dozen armed men barged into the Karachi-based daily “Ummat”‘s Hyderabad bureau office and beat up two staff members. They also ransacked the office, broke furniture, computers, a television, a fax machine and telephone sets. Bureau chief Abdul Hafeez Abid was not […]

(PPF/IFEX) – On 9 December 2001, Robert Fisk, foreign correspondent for the London-based daily “Independent”, was assaulted by a mob of Afghan refugees in Pakistan, near the border town of Chaman. He suffered injuries to his head, face and hand before being saved by a local religious leader. According to press reports, Fisk had been […]

(PPF/IFEX) – On Saturday 10 November 2001, journalist Christina Lamb and photographer Justin Sutcliffe British, from London’s “Sunday Telegraph”, were expelled from Pakistan for being involved in activities aimed at “defaming the country”. The British journalists had been detained on 9 November in Quetta and taken to Islamabad, the country’s capital. Press reports quoting authorities […]

(PPF/IFEX) – On Monday 8 October 2001, an angry mob attacked members of the foreign press corps from different countries during anti-United States demonstrations held in Pakistan’s capital, Islamabad. Foreign media representatives had gone there to cover the protest rallies against Unites States-led air strikes on Afghanistan. There were reports that stones were thrown, causing […]

(PPF/IFEX) – On 14 August 2001, the Pakistani government issued an ordinance under which printing, publishing or disseminating any material, or projecting any person convicted of a terrorist act or any banned organisation would be an offence punishable by up to six months’ imprisonment. However, the ordinance clarifies that “[a] factual news report made in […]

(PPF/IFEX) – The publishing licence or declaration of the weekly “K-2”, published in Gilgit, Baltistan, in the Northern Areas of Pakistan, was reinstated on 27 July 2001. The declaration was restored almost a year after it was revoked in August 2000 on the charge of publishing “objectionable material.” In its editorial, the weekly thanked all […]

(PPF/IFEX) – Four journalists from the Abbotabad daily “Mohasib” who were charged under the blasphemy law in early June 2001 were released on bail on Wednesday 18 July. The four newsmen were released from District Jail, Abbottabad, and brought to the Abbottabad Press Club by journalists and friends in the form of a procession. The […]