ISLAMABAD: The government has ordered inquiry into the targeting and social media trolling of some journalists and anchorpersons by a group on the basis of their political ideology.

This was disclosed by Law Minister Azam Nazeer Tarar during the Senate proceedings.

“The law will take its course,” he remarked.

After the issue of the campaign, being run against senior journalists Syed Talat Hussain, Hassan Ayub, Muneeb Farooq and Muzamil Hussain Shah through anonymous social media accounts involving several followers of a political party was raised in the Upper House by Senator Saifullah Khan Dharejo of the PPP, the law minister said when the rights of a citizen were breached to an extent that it constituted a crime, it became the responsibility of the government to take action against the culprits.

Mr Tarar said it was highlighted during a meeting presided over by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and attended by Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar as well as several ministers, including Information Minister Attaullah Tarar, how journalists were being targeted as their political ideology was not liked by a group.

Senator Irfan Siddiqui says new trend of suppressing voice of dissent has been set

He said the names of their children and details of their schools were being shared on social media under the campaign.

Parliamentary leader of PML-N Senator Irfan Siddiqui regretted that in the last few years, a new trend of suppressing the voice of dissent in total disregard to democratic norms had been set.

Without naming PTI, he said when the party was in government, it rendered these journalists jobless in a very systematic way by putting pressure on their respective organisations.

“Such tactics no matter whosoever employs do not work and the voice of truth cannot be choked,” he added.

Irfan Siddiqui said this kind of suppression, whether from a political party or from somewhere else, would not work.

Regretting the propaganda by some elements that oppression in Pakistan was more than that in the Indian-occupied Kashmir and Palestine, Senator Siddiqui said they defamed state institutions in the world by resorting to such tactics and they could not be considered Pakistan’s friends.

He stressed that the culture of silencing voices of dissent and resorting to violence in the name of peaceful protest must be brought to an end.

PTI Senator Saifullah Abro, in his speech, proposed a house committee sans representation of PTI into the killing of a relative of a Senate employee on November 26.

Brandishing a death certificate purportedly issued by Polyclinic, he said gunshot had been mentioned as cause of death in the certificate, adding that the death took place at 5:12pm when Article 245 had not been invoked.

Irfan Siddiqui, who at that time was presiding over the session, said the PTI had taken the matter to the court and should present evidence there.

Senator Abro said the proposed panel should also ascertain as to who was behind putting Asif Ali Zardari, Faryal Talpur, Nawaz Sharif and his spouse as well as other prominent political leaders in jail.

He also said it should also be probed as to why money laundering case involving billion of rupees was registered against Shehbaz Sharif during the PTI’s days in power.

“I will condemn if the case is found to be concocted. Otherwise those who played a role in his acquittal should be condemned,” he added.

PML-N’s Khalil Tahir Sindhu, while referring to the PTI’s recent protest in Islamabad, said it were their own party workers, who had asked Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Ali Amin Gandapur not to flee and had thrown shoes at him and beat him with sticks but still he managed to flee on a punctured vehicle from the protest.

At the outset, the house offered fateha for the departed souls of the martyrs of Army Public School Peshawar tragedy and senior politician and PML-N leader Siddiqul Farooq.

The house referred ‘The International Institute of Technology, Culture and Health Bill 2024’ bill to the joint sitting of the parliament for consideration.

Published in Dawn, December 17th, 2024