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| No newspapers in Valley on 3rd day of curfew MEDIA GAG | | | Early Times Report
Srinagar, July 9: Like on Thursday and Friday, no newspapers will be published, imported or circulated on the third consecutive day in Kashmir valley tomorrow. Distributors of national dailies, weeklies, magazines and other publications have already suspended importing consignments from New Delhi, Chandigarh, Jammu and other places due to continuous curfew in Valley.
Even as Government under flak from a many quarters today relented to an extent and issued curfew passes to accredited mediapersons, whose number is less than 50 in Kashmir and who do not include editors and other desk staff, five media bodies decided to suspend publication of newspapers on the third consecutive day on Saturday. As already reported, Government had barred all Kashmiri mediapersons from reaching the spots and reporting situation by canceling their curfew passes and declining to issue fresh ones. On the other hand, Government had on Tuesday and Wednesday brought in select journalists of newspapers and television news channels and arranged their embedded maneuvering in the most sensitive parts of this capital city.
According to a press release issued by Mr Bashir Manzar on behalf of these organizations, all five representative bodies of newspaper owners, editors, working journalists, photo journalists and video journalists on Friday denounced the government claim that restrictions on media had been lifted. They decided to suspend the publication of newspapers for tomorrow in view of insufficient number of curfew passes issued and continued attacks on media.
President Kashmir Press Association Ghulam Hassan Kaloo, President Press Guild of Kashmir, Bashir Ahmad Bashir, President of Kashmir Journalists Corps Ishfaqul Hassan, President of Kashmir Press Photographers Association Farooq Javed and President of Kashmir Video Journalists Association S Tariq in a joint statement termed the government announcement as mere eye wash to counter the condemnation from journalist bodies at national and International level.
A joint statement issued by the five organizations said that the members of these organizations had decided to hold a joint meeting but given the restrictions couldn't do so. The members then had the deliberations on telephone and the issue of continued restrictions was discussed threadbare. Government's discriminatory attitude towards Kashmir based media persons who were denied access to information and events but the journalists coming from Delhi were treated as special guests and all facilities were extended to them.
"Curfew passes were cancelled, media persons were beaten and forced to remain in-doors and the government has the cheek to say that there were no restrictions," the statement said, adding, "Even when the members of five organizations were discussing the situation, journalist Riyaz Masroor was beaten and left with a fractured arm," the statement said.
Though the government claimed that curfew passes were issued to Editors of the newspapers and few accredited journalists, the statement said that it was only to deceive those national and international bodies who had extended solidarity to hundreds of Kashmiri journalists who continue to be under siege.
"It is not the Editor who can bring out a newspaper. There are other people - people involved with desk-top printing; lay-out designing; printing; distribution who make the publication possible. Issuing a few curfew passes is not going to help publication," the statement said.
And also, the statement said, the staff members of newspapers are stuck in different curfew hit areas and therefore how could the curfew passes be delivered to them so that they are able to report to their respective organisations. Similarly the working journalists are facing problems in moving to offices and other places to get information.
Deliberating upon these issues, the statement said, these organizations described government's reported decision of issuing few curfew passes as a mere eye-wash, lacking seriousness.
In this backdrop, the statement said, that it was not humanly possible to publish and then circulate the newspapers given the restrictions and therefore there would be no newspaper on Saturday too.
The statement said that members of all five organizations will have another meeting Saturday to review the situation and chalk out future strategy accordingly.
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