PESHAWAR: The Khyber Union of Journalists (KhUJ) and the Peshawar Press Club (PPC) have urged the chief justice of the Peshawar High Court (PHC) to ensure that media organisations receive payments of outstanding government advertisement dues only after clearing salary arrears and other financial liabilities owed to working journalists. In a joint statement issued on Wednesday, KhUJ president Kashifuddin Syed, PPC president M. Riaz, PPC general secretary Alamgir Khan, KhUJ general secretary Irshad Ali and members of the executive bodies of both organisations said salaries and other dues of journalists employed by several media organisations had remained unpaid for a long time. They said the KP government and the Information and Public Relations Department had on several occasions assured journalists that outstanding government advertisement payments would not be released to media organisations unless they first cleared the dues of their employees. The statement alleged that some media owners were obtaining payments of outstanding government advertisement bills through court orders without first paying the salaries and other dues of working journalists, contrary to the assurances given by the provincial government. The KhUJ and PPC leadership appealed to Chief Justice Syed Muhammad Atique Shah to direct the provincial government and the Information Department to ensure that advertisement dues are released only to those media organisations that have fully paid the salaries and other financial liabilities of their journalists. They said such a mechanism would help safeguard the legal and economic rights of working journalists. DLP Report
