CPJ blog details agony of Pakistani journalist

JournalismPakistan.com | Published 10 years ago

ISLAMABAD: Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has detailed agony and pain of a Geo TV reporter Muhammad Rasool Dawar in a blog, urging Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to take measures to ensure safety of journalists.

Dawar is based in Federally Administrated Tribal Areas and works for FM-96, Nawa-i-Waqt and some international news organizations besides Geo TV.

“I have been picked up/arrested in Peshawar on two separate occasions for unknown reasons by security forces and kept in custody under extremely torturous conditions. I still feel frightened and am not comfortable at all to continue my professional duties at my work-stations in a free manner,” the blog quotes Dawar.

“Their threatening attitude and 'advice' to leave the town for some time prompted me to shift to Islamabad for about a week. Now I am gravely concerned about my safety as it's still uncertain when all this is going to end. The threat is not yet over. This is the first time in my nine-year journalistic career that I have experienced such frightening situation in which I was even physically harassed.”

The CPJ says that Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif promised to work for safety of journalists in a high-level meeting with CPJ delegation in March 2014 but he failed to honor the commitment.