Journalists in Pakistan observed a “black day” on Sunday in protest against police violence against several reporters in Islamabad.
In the Hindu Times, secretary-general of the Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists, Mazhar Abbas, called for the suspension and removal of the capital’s top police officer.
On 6 October, the day of the Presidential elections, the paper reports, the PFUJ plans to boycott the proceedings and present a ‘seven-year charge-sheet’against the government about its treatment of the media.
Abbas, a recipient of this year’s International Press Freedom Award from the Committee to Protect Journalists, is said to have recently found bullets in an envelope in his car. He told the Hindu Times: “The kind of things that have happened to journalists under Musharraf is unprecedented. They have been killed, kidnapped, their lives in danger.”
Reuters reported that 400 journalists and human rights activists took part.
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