Pakistani media abstains from reporting assembly sessions due to the shutdown of the Quetta Press club
May 22, Quetta, Balochistan, Pakistan In protest of the Quetta Press Club (QPC) closing and police entering its grounds on Saturday, which interrupted a seminar hosted by the Baloch Yakjahti Committee (BYC), journalists covering the assembly session staged a boycott of the proceedings, Dawn reported.
The executive committees of the Balochistan Union of Journalists (BUJ) and the QPC met and decided to boycott together.
As the assembly session began, a large number of journalists, led by the presidents of BUJ and QPC, Abdul Khaliq Rind, and Khalil Ahmed, left the press gallery and gathered outside the hall holding signs and banners expressing their demands, Dawn reported.
They angrily denounced the press club’s closure by the police and the local government.
Speaking during the demonstration, leaders of BUJ and QPC sharply denounced the government’s interference at QPC, calling it a flagrant breach of Article 19 and an infringement on press and speech freedom.
A delegation of assembly members, including Mir Zahoor Ahmed Buledi, Rehmat Baloch, Mir Zabit Reki, and Finance Minister Mir Shoaib Nosherwani, met with the protesting journalists in a show of solidarity and declared their support for the cause.
Following that, QPC and BUJ representatives met with Chief Minister Sarfarz Bugti and made their demands known. Dawn stated that the CM promised the delegation a comprehensive probe into the event.
