PEC
PEC demands justice to India’s
murdered scribe
Geneva: Press Emblem Campaign (PEC), the global media safety and
rights body, has mourned the death of its president Hedayat Abdel Nabi
(73) who passed away on Monday in Cairo. Meanwhile, the
international media forum expressed shock over the murder of another
Indian scribe named Juned Khan Pathan (37) from Surat locality of
Gujarat recently and it demanded justice for the bereaved family.
“We extend our most sincere condolences to Hedayat Abdel Nabi’s
family, her friends and colleagues who appreciated her availability,
dynamism and convictions. Born on 10 November 1948 in Cairo, Hedayat
co-founded PEC in 2004 with other correspondents at the United Nations
Office in Geneva. Indefatigable, she supported the struggle for better
protection of journalists when covering conflicts and crises,” said
Blaise Lempen, secretary-general of PEC.
He also added, “Our struggle continues, beyond our sorrow after her
sudden death. The greatest tribute that we can pay to her is to show
that the cause she defended with passion survives and that we are
ready and willing to pursue it as long as necessary so that impartial,
independent and dispassionate information may emerge in all
circumstances and that the machinations of dictators and criminal
gangs will never muzzle the press.”
The Gujarati scribe was stabbed to death by four miscreants on 13
February. Working for a local weekly newspaper, Pathan was killed in
front of his wife and three minor daughters at Jilani bridge area in
broad daylight. He was riding a two-wheeler with family members and
had a collision with a car where the culprits were traveling. They
stabbed him to death with a sharp knife and fled from the spot.
PEC’s India representative Nava Thakuria reveals that Pathan is the
third Indian scribes, who has been murdered this year. Earlier
Odisha’s Kalahandi-based journalist Rohit Kumar Biswal and Uttar
Pradesh’s Saharanpur-based journalist Sudhir Saini lost their lives
to assailants. South Indian photojournalist T Kumar killed himself
after the employer news agency (UNI) denied him full salaries for the
last consecutive five years.
09-03-2022