May 3 is celebrated around the world, including in Pakistan, as World Press Freedom Day, which aims to address the challenges, problems, and lives of journalists facing the print and electronic media in performing their professional duties. To inform the world of the dangers facing journalists, to formulate strategies to prevent attacks on press freedom, and to express solidarity with journalists who have been killed, injured, or affected in the line of duty.
World Press Freedom Day celebrations began in 1993 with a UN General Assembly resolution. Every year on this day, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) holds a grand event. Like the rest of the world, Pakistan also hosts seminars, rallies, and various events on the occasion of World Press Freedom Day. Journalism is rightly the fourth pillar of the state, which also empowers the other three pillars, the administration, the legislature, and the judiciary, which strengthens the state’s empire.
Journalists provide information on public issues and administrative bodies and bring the truth to the public by finding out. Rather, they act as a bridge between the government and the people, and many die in the line of duty. Journalist organizations and personalities have faced various kinds of restrictions in every era. Many oppressors have not refrained from taking the lives of the workers associated with the journalism sector by inflicting the worst violence and oppression on them.
We pay tribute to all those personalities associated with journalism who with their steadfastness thwarted all the nefarious intentions of the oppressive rulers. Undoubtedly, the print and electronic media is the mirror in which the corrupt elements are frightened to see their real face, and then instead of correcting their actions and character, they try to break the mirror.
In Pakistan, journalists have been unjustly detained, beaten, and beaten not only by law enforcement and intelligence agencies, but also by tribal chiefs and feudal lords, activists of religious groups and political parties. Whether it is dictatorship or democracy, the rulers of every era have tried unsuccessfully to suppress the right to freedom of the press.
Of course, locking up the freedom of the press is like closing the open windows of the free-thinking of the human mind. If we look at history, we find that in the past, when people in backward or poor countries were intoxicated for a long time and endured their poverty, ignorance, diseases, or other issues of life, there was a lot of media. He came and played an important role in liberating these people from outdated ideas, and awakened the consciousness of the people of these countries so that they, like other countries, could benefit from modern scientific progress and improve their standard of living.
Undoubtedly, journalism is one of the most difficult fields, and all those associated with print and electronic media deserve tribute for providing information to the people about all walks of life. Of course, every job, including news editing, proofreading, pasting, copy making, and printing, takes a lot of work. When the whole world is asleep, journalists wake up and run their pens. And when a journalist tries to bring out the facts in order to educate the people, for the security of Pakistan, to bring the scourge of society to an end, they are threatened, thus endangering their lives.
But even today, ideological journalism institutions and serious-minded journalists are committed to freedom of expression and the sanctity of the pen. Pakistan’s journalistic community has always strived for the promotion and stability of democracy, but no effective law has been enacted to protect journalists themselves. The difficulties journalists face in Pakistan can be gauged from survey reports from around the world.
There is a moment of concern as to why no serious steps are being taken to protect the lives of journalists despite the threats to their lives. There is a need for the present government to make serious efforts to implement the Journalist Safety Law for the protection of journalists, so that journalists can carry out their journalistic duties without any fear or danger
