PPF appealed to the Chief Justice, Supreme Court of Pakistan, to direct the concerned authorities to clarify if the leaked report on the 2014 attack on a journalist is authentic, and if it is to release it officially along with all annexures and appendixes.
This statement was originally published on pakistanpressfoundation.org on 12 April 2016.
Pakistan Press Foundation (PPF) today [April 12, 2016] appealed to Justice Anwar Zaheer Jamali, Chief Justice, Supreme Court of Pakistan, to direct the concerned authorities to officially release the leaked “Report of the Commission of Inquiry Regarding the Incident of Firing on Hamid Mir”, along with all annexures and appendixes.
The judicial commission was set up by the government in response to national and international furor over the firing on April 19, 2014 in Karachi at renowned journalist and talk show host Hamid Mir of Geo Television. Mir received six bullet wounds on his body and narrowly escaped death.
PPF Secretary General Owais Aslam Ali, in the April 12 letter to Chief Justice Anwar Zaheeer Jamali, said the leaking of the report rather than an official release has made it almost impossible to have a serious, informed national debate on the report dealing with the extremely important issue of press freedom and the safety of media professionals. Ali appealed to the Chief Justice to direct the concerned authorities to clarify if the leaked report is authentic, and if it is to release it officially along with all annexures and appendixes.
The PPF Secretary General also brought to the notice of the Chief Justice the important factual error regarding Musa Khankhel, reporter of Geo and Jang Group, who in the leaked report has been described as a “bad Taliban chief”. Musa Khankhel was abducted and murdered at gunpoint while on a reporting assignment on February 18, 2009 and later his body was found with his hands and feet tied. Ali said, all leading media organizations within and outside Pakistan are unanimous that Khankhel was murdered while on a journalistic assignment and labeling him as a “bad Taliban chief” is a great injustice to his memory. He appealed to the Chief Justice that this erroneous reference to Musa Khankhel may kindly be corrected.
PPF is an independent media documentation and training centre working for almost five decades to defend and promote freedom of the press in Pakistan and internationally.
