The International
Federation of Journalists (IFJ) joins its affiliate the Pakistan Federal Union
of Journalists (PFUJ) in strongly condemning the killing of another journalist,
Abdul Qadir Hajizai, in Pakistan’s Balochistan province on May 28, 2012.
Abdul Qadir Hajizai,
who had been working with a private Balochi language TV channel, WASH
TV, for the last two years, was reportedly heading home
when armed men on a motorcycle opened fire on him in the Basima area of Washik
district in Balochistan. He was taken to a local hospital where he died.
In another incident, the
house of the President of the Turbat Press Club, Irshad Akhtar was fired upon
the same day. No one was injured in the attack.
Earlier in the month, on May 18, Razzaq
Gul, a senior journalist and reporter with Express News in Turbat City in the Kech district of Balochistan
province was also killed.
"The situation
for journalists in Balochistan is worsening each day”, the IFJ Asia-Pacific
said.
“It is crucial that
the provincial government take immediate action to ensure that journalists are
kept safe and their killers apprehended and charged”.
“The IFJ supports the
PFUJ in its country-wide protest against the Balochistan government for its
failure to control the rising incidents of journalists' killing."
A recent estimate by
the Balochistan Union of Journalists, a constituent unit of the PFUJ, suggests
that Hajizai is the twenty-second journalist killed in the province in the last
three years.
The PFUJ/IFJ report
on the State of Journalism in Balochistan
Province, released on World Press Freedom Day 2012, is available on the IFJ
website here.
For
further information contact IFJ Asia-Pacific on +612 9333 0950
The IFJ
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