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Thursday March 28, 2024

Journalist’s hunger strike for Mir Shakil’s release continues

By Asim Hussain
April 17, 2020

LAHORE: Veteran journalist Azhar Munir, who is now in the 20th day of hunger strike, has been suffering from weakness and loss of sleep for the last many days and though he feels he is stable but his colleagues fear his weakness could make him prone to any infection.

Azhar has been on a hunger strike for the release of Jang/Geo/The News Editor-in-Chief Mir Shakil-ur-Rahman, who is under custody of the NAB over a 35-year-old property purchase case.

So far he has been waging a lone struggle sitting on a rug at the footpath outside the Lahore Press Club. He has rejected all requests to give up his strike from his colleagues, friends and family of Mir Shakil-ur-Rahman, reiterating his stance that he is there not for any personal or material gain, but for the cause of democratic freedoms on the call of his conscience.

He said as far as he remembers, he has always stood up for the cause of freedoms ever since he was a student, as he is a firm believer in the concept of freedoms and equalities, as warranted by the democratic values and institutions.

Over the last few days he suffered from a fit of cough and difficulty in standing up and walking, due to growing weakness. “But now I’m feeling better, may be because I have become used to it,” he said, while talking to The News. However, his friends were still concerned for his life as he has been a smoker for over four decades and his lungs were also weak. Besides, he also had bouts of indigestion when he was made to eat after long intervals of starvation since his intestines were becoming dried due to absence of proper food and hydration. But Azhar said he ‘feels all right’, adding that “I have never suffered from diabetics, blood pressure and high cholesterol problems, which have been a hallmark of journalists”.

He considers Mir Shakil-ur-Rahman’s detention illegal even under the NAB laws which have no provision of arresting the accused at verification stage. “I know his arrest is pure victimisation for exposing the government, the hidden hands and the unlawful actions of the NAB as a tool to victimise the political opponents. This arrest is meant to scare away other media houses from daring to criticise the PTI government policies,” he told this scribe.

Azhar, is also a life member of the Lahore Press Club, and had been using club’s facilities like washroom, benches for sleeping at night. But sadly, he has stopped using those facilities after a few days into the strike as a mark of protest when some members asked him not to come inside fearing he has contracted coronavirus. “I have been a sufferer of coughing as I have been smoking for over four decades; but they suspected me of coronavirus infection,” he said. “I stopped using press club’s washrooms after that, and still not using that though LPC office-bearers later asked me that it was a misunderstanding and that I’m welcomed inside whenever I wish to come,” he added.