Pakistan Journalists
Punjab Assembly in Pakistan passed new law: Journalists reject, stage protest
Islamabad: Several journalist associations have rejected Punjab Assembly's new law as an attack on press freedom wherein the so-called judicial committee of the house may penalise in a summary trial any journalist or bureaucrat for breach of a privilege of the house, any of its committee or a member.
The Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists (Rana Azeem), Punjab Union of Journalists, Lahore Press Club and Punjab Assembly Press Gallery Committee, Electronic Media Reporters Association and South Punjab Journalists Association have condemned the ‘clandestine’ passage of the Provincial Assembly of the Punjab Privileges (Amendment) Bill, 2021, reports Dawn News.
The journalist had earlier announced a rally outside the Governor House on Friday to demonstrate against the law.
The bill, ironically having support of all the government and opposition parties – PTI, PML-Q, PML-N, and PPP – passed without circulating it among the press gallery members, authorises the speaker to form a judicial committee with powers of magistrate 1st class on a complaint by a member and the body may get arrested the journalist without warrant from the precincts of the assembly and hand down him up to six months jail term and a fine up to Rs10,000 for breach of any privilege mentioned in a schedule inserted into the Privileges Act II of 1972, reports Dawn News.
The bill, yet to be signed by the governor to become a law, empowers a lawmaker, who is supposed to participate in a meeting convened by any government, semi-government or autonomous body, to chair that sitting.
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