Mirza on 1st day of assuming sr. minister slot attacks press freedom
KARACHI: On the very first day of his assuming the charge of Sindh senior minister, Dr. Zulfiqar Ali Mirza has made a blatant attack on the freedom of press by stopping the Geo News team from coverage, as his guards on his directive snatched away the camera, mike, bullet-proof jackets, helmet and DVs.
Senior provincial minister, Zulfiqar Mirza got the Geo News team maltreated, abused, humiliated and insulted by his guards and himself here early this morning, when the Geo team was making a video of his VVIP convoy near Light House on M.A. Jinnah Road.
Zulfiqar Mirza moving with more than a dozen of mobile vehicles, his guards in uniform and plain clothes on his directive stopped Geo News from coverage on gun point, threatened to kill them and snatched away Geo News teams camera, mike, bullet-proof jackets, helmet and DVs.
Meanwhile, Zulfiqar Mirza himself joined in the melee used abusive and filthy languages (not printable) naming some of the senior journalists, anchor persons of different Tv programs, Jang Group and the media as a whole. After a while on his directive, the police tried to lift the News team into the mobile, while the sr. minister grabbing Geo News reporter Shoaib Burney and cameraman Zubairuddin by their identity cards hanging with their necks dragged it away.
The journalists have declared this shameful and shocking incident an attack on the freedom of press by the provincial sr. minister, Zulfiqar Mirza and have expressed their grief and anger.
http://www.geo.tv/7-10-2011/83527.htm