Admin officials, cops ‘disrupt’ journalists’ meeting in DG Khan

LAHORE:Plain-clothed administration officials and cops in Punjab Police uniform have disrupted and forced an early end to a meeting of journalists discussing safety challenges and the state of media freedoms in the Seraiki belt of Punjab province and expelled senior journalist Iqbal Khattak and an accompanying team from Dera Ghazi Khan district.

“Stop the meeting and leave the district,” a district administration official who introduced himself as ‘Tehsildar Chaudhry Haneef,’ accompanied by a Punjab Police official with a badge on his chest inscribed with ‘SHO Younas,’ from Saddar Police Station, told Khattak. According to a press statement issued here on Monday, the incident took place on November 21, 2024.

Khattak is also an official member of the “Punjab Journalists Protection Coordination Committee” established by the Punjab government in 2023 with support of former caretaker information minister Amir Mir to investigate crimes of impunity against journalists in Punjab and provide official support to the journalists’ community. The DIG (Legal) of Punjab Police heads the committee.

The meeting was being conducted in DG Khan city as part of regular research initiatives analysing the state of media freedoms in provinces. Haneef and Younas failed to show any written official directive, as required under law, or cite any legal provision allowing them to disrupt and force an early end to a lawful, private and peaceful meeting of journalists. Instead, they gruffly asked the Reporters Without Borders (RSF) Pakistan representative, Freedom Network team members and local journalists, including a woman media practitioner, attending the discussion to “wind up the meeting and leave the venue at once.” “Ironically, the local journalists had been lamenting about widespread intimidation, enforced censorship, self-censorship and threats and violence they face by district officials only minutes before the team raided the premises, disrupted the meeting and forced a premature end to it,” Khattak said. The meeting with journalists from DG Khan, Rajanpur, Muzaffargarh and Layyah districts was part of a series of discussions with leadership of press club, regional unions of journalists, key police officials, political parties and civil society leaders in the South Punjab region - also known as Seraiki Wasaib by natives - to frame recommendations for the Punjab govt concerning safety of journalists and state of freedom of expression and freedom of association in Seraiki belt of Punjab province. SHO Saddar Police DG Khan Malick Younis said that the organisers of the event didn’t get prior permission but as tehsildar accompanied by police reached the venue, the session was completed. He denied the charges that the participants were dispersed and asked to quit the district.