An international organization for the protection of journalists has strongly condemned the harassment of female journalist Fatima Razzaq for reporting on Baloch protesters in Pakistan’s capital Islamabad.
Committee for Protection of Journalists (CPJ) has said in its released statement that five plainclothes gunmen forcibly detained a female journalist while she was waiting for her bus in Rawalpindi near Islamabad. “The accused kept Fatima Razzaq in custody at gunpoint for forty minutes and asked her various questions about the activities of the Baloch Yakjetti Committee (BYC) in Islamabad and harassed her,” the statement read.
The statement further added that the persons demanded the journalist’s camera, which the journalist refused to hand over, then they took the mobile phone of the female journalist and started looking for things and then damaged the mobile phone.
CPJ has demanded the government ensure the safety of journalists so that journalists can cover the protest without fear and hindrance.
It should be remembered that during the coverage of the Baloch Yekjetti Committee’s sit-in protest against the “Baloch Genocide” in Islamabad, a female journalist Somaiyah Hafeez was also detained by the Islamabad police while several other journalists covering the ongoing protests were under severe criticism by the government authorities.
Quoting CPJ’s statement, the senior Pakistani journalist and columnist Hamid Mir said on social media that another journalist Somaiyah Hafeez was also arrested by Islamabad police the same day.
It’s pertinent to mention that Pakistan’s Caretaker Prime Minister Anwarul Haq Kakar had also criticized the journalists and termed them as “supporters of terrorists”, while the Prime Minister asked the journalists to join the Baloch insurgents, such as BLA and BLF.