Maryam Nawaz provokes media

ISLAMABAD: PML-N Vice President Maryam Nawaz, while addressing the social media workers convention in Lahore on Sunday, urged the media to refuse to become a tool for anyone. She said no one would be able to deter the media if they all were united. She said all the news channels get oral or written orders even from junior officers and they have to obey. 

She said she understands that these channels are doing it under compulsion, but asked for how long they will endure this. “Geo News is nowadays against us [PML-N], but I know it is facing pressure,” she added.

Maryam said the government was very cunning which had pitched news channels and anchorpersons against each other. She said media was even not free to run the name of a retired officer on TV. She said the heads of those channels which refused to accept pressure and work professionally were put into NAB cell. She said the editor-in-chief of Jang/Geo Group was also arrested under the same pattern.

The PML-N leader said those who had the courage to speak truth on the media were sacked from their jobs. She said the channels were asked to sack specific anchors and were warned that their channels will be closed if they did not oblige, and then the channel was closed.

Maryam said people like Matiullah Jan and Ali Imran were made to disappear and then “fake prime minister” said on TV that he didn’t know about it. “If you don’t know who attacked Maryam’s room in Karachi and who kidnapped Captain (R) Safdar and IG then why people shouldn’t call you ‘Khaw Makhaw’.”

She asked media for how long it would endure this attitude. She said if the same situation continued then one day the media people will be dragged from their houses and then they will have to say that they went to Northern Areas for ‘recreation’.