COMMUNICATION & INFORMATION
World Press Freedom Day Celebrations, 3 May 2012
| UNESCO Islamabad with United Nations Information Center (UNIC) organized commemoration events to highlight World Press Freedom Day on 3rd May 2012. The day was officially launched with Qamar-Uz-Zaman Kaira, Minister of |
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Information and Broadcast, along with Dr. Kay Nagata, Director UNESCO, Mr. Timo Pakkala, Resident Coordinator UN system in Pakistan and Mr. Kazue Tase, Director UNIC at a high level stakeholder’s seminar. Eminent journalists, media practitioners, media development organizations, press club presidents attended the commemorative seminar, followed by a candle light vigil in front of Islamabad Press Club, to pay tribute to the journalists who lost their lives in the line of duty. Various journalists attended the seminar from conflict areas, which specially flew in to share their experiences and challenges faced to “Freedom of Expression” especially in conflict areas. |
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In Pakistan, at least 118 journalists have been killed in Pakistan since 1947, no less than 80 since 2000 and at least 15 in the last 15 months. The staggering average for the last 12 years comes to a journalist killed every 50 days. Many; no less than 44 of the 80 killed, lost their lives reporting conflict from places with the greatest militancy - largely Federally Administered Tribal Areas, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan - where both sharing and concealing information came to be a deadly vocation in varying measures. The number of journalists not killed but who were nonetheless attacked, injured, kidnapped, arrested and threatened over their work number over a thousand. Of the 80 killed since 2000, at least 32 journalists were shot dead in target killings, eight were kidnapped by militants of which three were tortured to death, their bodies badly mutilated while three were beheaded, including Daniel Pearl - the case even non-journalists in Pakistan and abroad know about. No less than a dozen died in suicide attacks that were probably not meant to target them specifically but in which they nonetheless died while on official duty covering public events like rallies, processions and funerals. At part of United Nations family and the only mandated agency for the promotion and safeguarding of freedom of expression and Press, UNESCO dedicated this day to ensure that the access to information as a global public resource, to which all have access and where all voices are heard. For UNESCO this day underlines the importance of quality content. This calls for action to defend the integrity and safety of reporters. All principles of freedom of expression must be brought to world. And they must be protected.  Press ClippingDawn | Tribune | Radio Pakistan | Pak Observer | APP |
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