‘Authentic data on crimes against journalists vital for policy making’

Islamabad : The importance of verified and authenticated data on crimes against Journalists and its significance as credible evidence for policy discourse around the safety of journalists, and the possible roles and responsibilities of various government and non -government stakeholders in this process, was highlighted at a two-day seminar organised by the Parliamentarians Commission on Human Rights (PCHR) and Peace and Justice Network (PJN), in collaboration with UNESCO.

Welcoming all the stakeholders, Shafique Chaudhry, Executive Director PCHR, said that at the time of compilation of the first state report of Pakistan in the first VNR in 2019, on status of implementation of SDG’. The challenge of obtaining verified data from the government against SDG-16.10. 1 was identified as the data on crimes against journalists was not available in the compiled form at any level in any government organisation.

Syed Raza Ali Naqvi, Executive Director, Peace, and Justice, in his presentation shown on the slides of workshops and meetings held in the last month, said that this advocacy workshop was organized in collaboration with relevant departments and government agencies for an integrated data collection system for high-level coordination. Ex IGP Syed Kaleem Imam also stressed the need for the identification of genuinely working journalists and the importance of Journalism in this difficult time of fake news and such verified data will be helpful for its further prevention.

Kashmala Tariq, Federal Ombudsman for harassment in work place focused on the importance of the safety of women journalists and highlighted the need to collect and include data on harassment and trolling cases in this database. The workshop was attended by representatives of the Ministry of Information, Human Rights, Pakistan Bureau of Statistics, Planning, and Development, and aimed at protecting journalists and preventing crimes against them.