wartribune

By Sohail Khattak KARACHI : Journalists Salman Shahzad and Muhammad Wali Afridi were delirious with happiness and exhaustion when they reached their last destination, the Karachi Press Club, after traveling from Peshawar on motorcycle in a bid to highlight the dangers their kind face in the line of duty. Their journey started on May 26. “We did this to draw attention to the unsafe conditions faced by the journalists of the country, especially those in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and the tribal areas,” said Shahzad, 25, while speaking to The Express Tribune. They stopped at press clubs in Nowshera, Islamabad , Lahore , Multan and Hyderabad on the way. “We have collected data on the murders of 26 journalists who have been killed since 9/11. Thirteen of them were killed in just the last 13 months,” said Shahzad. Then, on May 10, the death of news reporter Nasrullah Afridi in a bomb blast occurred in Peshawar . “Nasrullah’s death forced us to do something for the rights and protection...

Salman Shahzad Since times immemorial, human has always committed crimes and I am cocksure there should have been rules and regulations how to overcome the ever-growing trend of crimes. With the pace of human intellect, the black side (the wolf inside human) also started growing and when the world entered into the age of scientific revolutions, inventions, discoveries, rationalism and democracy; we have one thing in legacy from our ancestors—hanging human for crimes while that’s quite vague when and where it took its birth. Nonetheless one thing is quite clear and that is the system has always been riddled with flaws and lapses as it is too troublesome to get into reality as one basic question always click mind—who is innocent and who is guilty. As globally countless human rights groups are vociferously calling for the end of ‘hanging tradition’ and a number of states have come to agreement that it should come to an end now but in Pakistan unfortunately it is still intact. Lead ...