Journalists, Malala pour scorn on Noorani’s attackers

ISLAMABAD/LAHORE: Journalists, press clubs and the youngest Nobel Prize laureate Malala Yousafzai Saturday poured scorn on the attackers of The News journalist Ahmad Noorani and called for their immediate arrest.

In a statement, the Committee to Protect Journalists, an independent watchdog body, called on the government to swiftly investigate the incident and bring to justice perpetrators of attacks against a journalist and news organizations in the country this week.

"These repeated brutal attacks show once again that nowhere is safe for journalists or news workers in Pakistan," CPJ Asia Programme
Coordinator Steven Butler said in a statement issued late Friday.

"Pakistani authorities must assure that these attacks on press freedom come to a halt by swiftly finding and punishing those responsible," he said.

The CPJ said it had documented the wide array of risks journalists face in Balochistan. Pakistan was eighth on the CPJ's 2016 Impunity Index.

In Lahore, journalists staged a demonstration in front of Lahore Press Club demanding immediate arrest of attackers and handing them a severe punishment.

In Islamabad, journalists staged a hunger strike
camp demanding that the
government immediately arrest Ahmad Noorani’s attackers.

Malala Yousafzai Saturday said she was deeply hurt by the attack on senior journalist Ahmad Noorani.

"Ahmad Noorani's struggle is for Pakistan's cause and we all stand united with him in this struggle," she said. 

"I pray that he [Norani] gets well soon."