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Three television journalists severely beaten by police; cable operators told to stop broadcasting television channel

(PPF/IFEX) - Police in Lahore, the capital city of Punjab, Pakistan's largest province, brutally assaulted and injured two journalists and a cameraman on 17 September 2006. The journalists were assaulted by the police at the venue of a public rally by a religious political party.

According to Wadood Mushtaq, senior reporter of the television channel ARY TV, when he saw approximately two dozen policemen beating Nazir Awan, a reporter with ATV, another television channel, he asked his cameraman to film the scene.

Mushtaq informed the police that the person they were beating was a journalist and asked why they were assaulting him. Instead of answering, some of the policemen started beating Mushtaq as well. The police officers also dragged away ATV cameraman Zahid Malik and beat him mercilessly. Later, the officers hauled the journalists form the scene and detained them in police station cells.

Malik and Awan were rendered unconscious, while Mushtaq was beaten into a state of semi-consciousness.

Mushtaq, who is a heart patient, felt his heart pounding and asked for water but the police refused and ordered him to sit quietly.

After about 40 minutes, the bureau chief of ARY TV, along with the Punjab public relations director general, arrived at the police station. When senior police officials later arrived to the station, they authorized the transfer of the journalists to hospital.

Mushtaq received injuries to his head, face and back; Awan's arm was fractured and his entire body bruised; Malik suffered a spinal injury.

Federal, provincial and city journalists' bodies condemned the police assault on these journalists as they were discharging their duties. In a joint meeting held on 17 September, the office-bearers of the Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists, the Punjab Union of Journalists and the All Pakistan Newspaper Employees Confederation adopted a unanimous resolution, asking the government not to transform the country into a police state.

Punjab province's chief minister, Chaudhry Pervaiz, ordered the immediate dismissal of the officers responsible and that a departmental action be taken against them. A handout from the government of Punjab said that the chief minister had warned that no leniency would be shown to the policemen involved in the incident. City police authorities suspended two police officers and filed a case against them.

However, despite the chief minister's pronouncements, his provincial government continued on the path of confrontation and asked district police officers throughout the province to make cable operators discontinue the transmission of ARY TV after the channel condemned the assault on the journalists. A spokesman for ARY TV said the provincial government had no authority to do so under the law, and asked the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA) to intervene.