Kathmandu. Reporters Without Borders (RSF) and SAARC Journalist Forum, SJF calls on Pakistan\u2019s supreme court to order the immediate release of Jang media group owner Mir Shakil-ur-Rahman, also known as MSR, who has been held on a spurious charge since March and whose release on bail has been refused twice by a court in Lahore, the capital of Punjab province. The supreme court is due to hear his appeal against denial of bail next week.<\/p>\n
Mir Shakil-ur-Rahman\u00a0will\u00a0complete his 240th day in a Lahore prison\u00a0tomorrow because of a claim by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) that a piece of land he acquired in 1986 was allocated to him by Punjab\u2019s then chief minister, Mian Nawaz Sharif, \u201cin violation of the relevant laws and rules.\u201d<\/p>\n
At a hearing held before the NAB on 5 March, Rahman produced documents showing that the land was acquired in a perfectly legal manner from a private third party. He was nonetheless arrested on the basis of the same nebulous, 34-year-old accusation at a second hearing a week later, on 12 March.<\/p>\n
Rahman\u2019s lawyer, Faisal Siddiqui, told RSF that the NAB was continuing to press the case against his client. After Siddiqui\u2019s requests for Rahman\u2019s release on bail were denied twice in Lahore, he appealed to the supreme court in Islamabad, which ruled on 3 November that it could hear the appeal. The hearing has been set for 9 November.<\/p>\n
Manipulation :<\/p>\n
\u201cWe urge the supreme court\u2019s judges to display good sense and independence by ordering Mir Shakil-ur-Rahman\u2019s immediate release and dismissing the charges against him,\u201d said Daniel Bastard.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe judicial system has been manipulated in an outrageous manner in this case to make a media owner pay for his staff\u2019s editorial freedom. It is time for Pakistan\u2019s judiciary to demonstrate its autonomy by reaffirming the primacy of media freedom over governmental pressure.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Jang group, whose media outlets including\u00a0The News, a leading daily newspaper, and the\u00a0Geo\u00a0TV network,\u00a0has long been targeted by the authorities\u00a0because its journalists don\u2019t content themselves with reproducing the government\u2019s anodyne statements and promises and because they dare to\u00a0tackle stories that are supposed to be off limits.<\/p>\n
SAARC Journalist Forum SJF also demand Pakistan Government to unconditional release of Jang media group owner Mir Shakil-ur-Rahman, also known as MSR, whose release on bail has been refused twice by a court in Lahore, the capital of Punjab province. Pakistan is ranked 145th out of 180 countries in\u00a0RSF’s 2020 World Press Freedom Index.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Kathmandu. Reporters Without Borders (RSF) and SAARC Journalist Forum, SJF calls on Pakistan\u2019s supreme court to order the immediate release of Jang media group owner Mir Shakil-ur-Rahman, also known as MSR, who has been held on a spurious charge since March and whose release on bail has been refused twice by a court in Lahore, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":1927,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[378],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1926","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/timesasian.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/Fotor_160473625575160.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesasian.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1926","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesasian.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesasian.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesasian.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesasian.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1926"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/timesasian.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1926\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1928,"href":"https:\/\/timesasian.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1926\/revisions\/1928"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesasian.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1927"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesasian.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1926"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesasian.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1926"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesasian.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1926"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}