Amir Ahmad Siddiqui Media Awards 2018:

KP, Fata journalists honoured

By Bureau report

PESHAWAR: Journalists from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata) were honoured for their work at the annual Amir Ahmad Siddiqui Media Awards 2018 here on Saturday.

The awards, an initiative to promote ethical and competitive journalism, have been named after late Amir Ahmad Siddiqui, the founding member of Peshawar Press Club and Khyber Union of Journalists (KhUJ).

A large number of journalists and literati attended the event held at the Peshawar Press Club. Former senator and Pakistan People’s Party leader Farhatullah Babar was the chief guest while senior journalist Rahimullah Yusufzai presided the function.

The awards, which are in its third year, were decided by a five-member judges committee comprising senior journalists Rahimullah Yusufzai, Ismail Khan and Abdullah Jan, Dr Faizullah Jan, Chairman Department of Journalism and Mass Communication, University of Peshawar and Shabina Ayaz, Resident Director, Aurat Foundation.

However, in contrast to the previous two occasions, this year seven other senior journalists also helped out the jury in shortlisting the winners.

They included Mohammad Ilyas Khan and Jehangir Khattak for the English print media, Haroon Rashid for radio, Safiullah Gul, Mehmood Jan Babar and Ali Akbar for the TV packages and Zalan Mohmand for the Urdu features.

Zulfiqar Ali won the award for the best investigative story in English, Islam Gul Afridi for best Urdu feature, APP photographer Shehryar Anjum for the best picture, Fauzia Zeb from the 92 News for the best TV package, and Asif Mohmand of the Prognat Development Initiatives for the best radio report.

Umar Daraz of the Mashal Radio was awarded special award his TV package.

Late poet and scholar Qalandar Mohmand was posthumously awarded life-time achievement award. Hafiz Sanaullah, former chairman of Journalism Department, University of Peshawar, was also awarded life-time achievement award for his services for journalism.

The award winning reporters were also given cash prize of Rs25,000 each and a trophy carrying insignia of crescent and pen, specially designed by a Toronto-based artist Meredith Woddling.

Rahimullah Yusufzai, KhUJ president Saifullah Islam Saifi, senior journalist Mohammad Riaz, Ismail Khan, Zalan Mohmand and Abdullah Jan also spoke on the occasion.

Air Vice Marshal ® Faez Amir, the son of Amir Ahmad Siddiqui, presented the vote of thanks.

Former senator Farhatullah Babar said that late Lala Amir Siddiqui stood at the apex of newspaper distribution network in the province.

He said that without Lala Amir the printed words of newspapers would not have reached far and wide in the province.

“Words have divine attributes, they are the tools to transfer knowledge and wisdom from generation to generation,” Babar said, adding that Lala Amir played a critical role in spreading wisdom and knowledge contained in the words printed in newspapers.

Babar said the Pashtuns had suffered most grievously because of past state policies to build jehadi infrastructure to advance its dubious security and foreign policy objectives and called for heeding the voices of indigenous movements like the Pashtun Tahaffuz Movement (PTM) to avoid a national disaster in the making.

According to Babar, Pashtuns were used as cannon fodder and killed and maimed on both sides of the border, forcibly evicted from their homes, their homes and livelihood devastated, children orphaned, women widowed and now humiliated at checkposts in the name of security. “They have been victims of brutalities of both state and non-state actors. Seldom before a whole community has been so brutalised and for so long,” he mainatined.

The former PPP Senator said the Pashtuns were also suffering due to the drop in trade with Afghanistan. He felt it was no surprise that the voice of the Pashtuns was not heard as there was no big national media house owned by anyone from the region. “However, this gap was being filled by committed and competent journalists in the region and movements like the PTM who seem to give voice to the muted turbulence of Pashtun spirit,” he said.

Babar also spoke about his dream that the state within the state will come to an end and the people enabled to exercise their free will. “We dream that 18th Amendment and provincial autonomy will not be rolled back. We dream that judges will be respected not because of fear of the contempt law but because of reverence for their wisdom, sagacity and interpretation of the Constitution and the law. We dream that private jehad as instrument of state policy will be abandoned and our hearth and homes not destroyed,” he remarked.