{"id":105094,"date":"2020-07-31T16:08:53","date_gmt":"2020-07-31T23:08:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=105094"},"modified":"2020-07-31T16:08:53","modified_gmt":"2020-07-31T23:08:53","slug":"is-it-freedom-of-press","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2020\/07\/31\/is-it-freedom-of-press\/","title":{"rendered":"IS IT FREEDOM OF PRESS????"},"content":{"rendered":"

ALI SUKHANVER<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

Immature\neagerness rather urgency makes things horrible particularly when matters are\ndirectly linked with the credibility of a nation and security of a country. A\nfew days back when a renowned Pakistani journalist was allegedly kidnapped from\na very busy road of Pakistan\u2019s federal capital Islamabad, some media-men from\nnational and international media groups started pointing their fingers towards\nthe security agencies of Pakistan without any proof and without any\ninvestigation. Whosoever was behind this heinous act must be taken to task but\nafter thorough investigation. Blaming abruptly simply mars the facts; moreover such\ntype of \u2018blame-game\u2019 defames and discredits not only the working of our\nsecurity agencies but the whole country and the whole nation. Today countless\nIndians are sarcastically asking on social media \u2018What were the security\nagencies of Pakistan doing when that journalist was being kidnapped from that\nbusy road of the federal capital.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 It is the professional responsibility of all\nmedia-men to file their stories after complete investigation and certainly they\nmust provide proofs in support of their investigative reports. As far as the\nkidnapping incident from Islamabad\u2019s busy road is concerned, there had been\ncountless incidents of the same kind in US, UK and so many countries hundred\ntimes more advanced in resources and available technology. The security\nagencies must stop such type of incidents and they no doubt do everywhere as\nmuch as is possible for them. In most of the cases they try to keep a vigilant\neye on nefarious activities but they have no power of performing miracles; they\ncannot stop things which are in the minds of the planners.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Recently\nanother example of this immature eagerness was observed in different national\nand international newspapers when a news-report on unfreezing of the bank\naccounts of five leaders of (defunct) Jama’at-ud-Da’wah and Lashkar -e-Taiba\nwas published in a Pakistani paper. The news-report said that Pakistan has\nrestored their bank accounts. The report said, All of them are UNSC\u2019s enlisted\nterrorists though and currently facing sentences ranging 1 to 5 years in Lahore\njail for terror financing cases filed against them by the Punjab Counter\nTerrorism Department.\u2019 According to the details narrated in the news-report the\ndefunct JUD leaders had forwarded an appeal to the government of Pakistan for\nrestoring their bank accounts so that they could run their family affairs. They\nalso mentioned about their financial income and sources of earning. A copy of\nthis application was sent to the UNSC also for final approval. It means that\nthe UNSC was the final authority which could restore their accounts. The\ngovernment of Pakistan simply acted upon the directions given by the United\nNations; there was no personal interest or will of the government in restoring\ntheir bank-accounts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Keeping\nthe facts and figures aside, unfortunately, some analysts tried to convince their\naudience that this restoration of accounts was the result of that \u2018soft corner\u2019\nsomewhere hidden in the heart of the government of Pakistan. They tried to\nmisguide the world around that this restoration of bank-accounts was\nindependently done by the government of Pakistan. The facts are altogether\notherwise; Pakistan has never encouraged any kind of terrorism as Pakistan\nitself has been the worst victim to this menace. Restoration of the bank accounts\nof all these leaders has nothing to do with the \u2018will and desire\u2019 of the\ngovernment of Pakistan; it was simply done on the direction of UNSC. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dragging\nPakistan into a new blame game is in fact an attempt to defame the whole nation\nin the international community and to weaken the very foundation of the country\nalready facing a lot of problems. As per tradition the Indian media took full\nbenefit of the situation and exploited the news published in Pakistani\nnewspapers in the most negative way. It was also propagated that at the initial\nstage, Pakistan had restored the bank accounts of the \u2018terrorists\u2019, at some\nlater stage, arrangements would be done for their release. The South Asia\nMonitor said focusing on that news report, The report raised eyebrows over\nPakistan’s actions on ground and claims on papers in front of the global\ncommunity and the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), where it has claimed to\nseize all assets, offices and bank accounts of the JUD and its affiliate\nindividuals.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nball was never in the court of the government of Pakistan; the applicants sent\ntheir applications for the restoration of their bank accounts to the government\nof Pakistan and forwarded the same to the UNSC. It was not the government of\nPakistan but the United Nations Sanctions Committee responsible for unfreezing\nof these accounts. The Committee looked thoroughly into all details, followed\nall rules and regulations, approved the application and then directed the\ngovernment of Pakistan to take necessary action. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anyone\nwho misreported the facts and figures in fact violated all moral and ethical\nvalues. Blaming someone for the thing he has not done is a crime and this crime\nbecomes an act of terrorism when our own people get involved into it. While\nreporting on some issue of a sensitive nature or analyzing some sensitive\nsituation of national importance, we all must keep in mind that words become\nmore poisonous and more disastrous than nuclear weapons if not carefully used.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ALI SUKHANVER Immature eagerness rather urgency makes things horrible particularly when matters are directly linked with the credibility of a nation and security of a country. A few days back when a renowned Pakistani journalist was allegedly kidnapped from a very busy road of Pakistan\u2019s federal capital Islamabad, some media-men from national and international media […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-105094","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ali-sukhanver"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105094","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=105094"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105094\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=105094"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=105094"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=105094"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}