KARACHI:Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Women Wing leader and MPA Sharmila Farooqui has said that PTI government had brought worst economic crisis in the country and destroyed media industry by reducing advertisement rates to an alarming level that have left thousands of media workers and journalists jobless.
It was media which highlighted Imran during container politics but he in return stabbed it in the back, leaving over 26,000 media persons in the pool of unemployment, she said while talking to a group of journalists here on Sunday. She said that PPP government had always been supporting media industry and ensuring freedom of expression, but Khan’s government in a bid to silence some bitter truths had brought miseries to the media.
She said: “Dangers to the freedom of press have risen in Pakistan since the establishment of Imran government as the new tools and tactics have been set to press it, but the PPP government would not allow it at any cost.” A vibrant and free media is must for thriving democracy and development, and PPP government has always rejected draconian laws against media and is fully committed to support media and its workers, she says.
Sharmila rejected new sets of rules approved by the federal government to regulate social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and even TikTok and termed it as an attempt to control freedom of speech and expression, guaranteed under Article 19 of the Constitution.
She said that those attempts showed government’s dictatorial actions as those so-called rules were specifically aimed at targeting citizens right to freedom of expression, which are already under tremendous pressure since the government’s installation.
Sharmila said: “Forced retrenchment of independent journalists on the behest of anti-social elements, arrest of Mir Shakeelur Rehman and curtailment of advertisements to dangerous level is part of PTI media curbs, which will tarnish the democratic image of the country nationally and internationally.”
She demanded of the federal government to ensure immediate restoration of pre-Imran status of media and compensation to the media workers who have lost their jobs in the present government era.