Click to play videoIslamabad, New Delhi: Pakistani police officials on Friday entered the offices of a private news channel and assaulted journalists for showing images of security officials beating up people protesting against the sacking of the country’s Chief Justice.
Several dozen policemen carrying batons and shields entered Geo TV and allegedly lobbed teargas shells inside the newsroom. They damaged computers, equipment and cut the channel's Internet connection and broke windowpanes, said Geo TV journalists.
Hamid Mir, the channel’s bureau chief, went live on air and said "dozens of policemen" have entered the news room and are firing tear gas shells and destroying property.
“Government officials had threatened us to stop our transmission,” Mir told CNN-IBN over phone. The channel has enraged the government with its coverage of the sacking of Supreme Court judge Iftikhar M Chaudhry by President Pervez Musharraf last week.
Senior Editor Geo TV, Hamid Mir on the phone with CNN-IBN: "Police entered our newsroom and started destroying computers, desks everything. They want us to stop our transmission. They are beating my colleagues. One policeman is standing in front of me right now and is threatening me, ordering me to hang up the phone. We have been transmitting visuals of police beating women and children outside the Pakistan Supreme Court and Parliament so the police and the government are upset with us. They cut off our phone and Internet lines. The police is trying to arrest us. |
The Geo office is near Parliament and the Supreme Court, where a judicial council is hearing charges against the sacked judge. The Pakistan Interior Minister had assured the channel that it was committed to press freedom.
CNN.com reports the government on Thursday banned a popular show on Geo TV because of what it deemed to be negative coverage of Musharraf's fight with Chaudhry.
Kamran Khan, who hosts the show, told CNN that he had been banned from doing his show as of Thursday. Sources told CNN that other shows are likely to be banned as well.
Arshad Sharif, a senior journalist, said the police crackdown on the channel was a sad day for Pakistani journalism.
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