PESHAWAR
The Presidents and Members of the Sports Writers Association, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan Sports Writers Federation and Khyber Union of Journalists on Wednesday strongly condemned humiliation of foreign journalists at Bacha Khan International Airport Peshawar allegedly by airport security officials and ANF.
The journalists including a female journalist Nargiz Muhamdazai flanked by her father who was also a senior sports journalist Eldar Ismail from Azerbaijan and a sports journalist from Sri Lanka were stopped on the pretext of detailed checking due to which they missed their flights for their respective countries.
Nargiz Muhamdzai, the female journalist from Azerbaijan alleged that she was searched in front of her father by security officials and all her clothes and other items were thrown on the floor at the airport in the name of security search and later she was asked to put all the things back in bag one by one.
The delegation of journalists came Peshawar to attend a four-day international Peace and Sport Conference organized by Pakistan Sports Writers Federation and Sports Writers Association, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in collaboration with Bank of Khyber, Culture and Tourism Authority (CTA), Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Directorate General Sports here.
The conference was organized to promote the soft image of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa across the world, but the treatment meted out to the journalists ruined the whole efforts, said Khyber Union of Journalists President Nasir Hussain. When contacted ANF officials, they denied involvement of ANF staff and held the ASF officials responsible for the incident.
The journalists’ bodies in Pakistan including Khyber Union of Journalists, Pakistan Sports Writers Federation and Sports Writers Association, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa strongly condemned the incident and demanded immediate action against those involved.
In a statement, Khyber Union of Journalists President Nasir Hussain and General Secretary Imran Yousafzai said that the main purpose of holding the International Peace and Sports Conference in Peshawar for the first time was to show the positive face of Pakistan, especially Peshawar, to the world.
He said that the three foreign journalists missed their flights due to humiliating checking. He demanded a probe into the incident and an immediate action against the officials involved in this incident and responsible for tarnishing the image of Pakistan.
Talking to APP, SWAKP President Asim Shiraz and General Secretary Shahid Khan Afridi said that delegates from 12 countries including Azerbaijan Hungary, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, Romania, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Nepal and Pakistan were invited from across the world to attend the international conference but unfortunately manhandling of the foreign journalists spoiled the whole efforts to project soft image of KP.
In the meanwhile, APP learnt that ASF constituted a committee to probe the incident and identify the officials involved for further action.
