BRUSSELS: Leading European newspapers, media organisations
and broadcasters including the Voice of Germany have raised major questions in
their articles about the 50-day-long illegal incarceration of Mir
Shakil-ur-Rahman, Editor-in-Chief of Jang-Geo Group.

In their write-ups, they have raised serious questions about
government interference, the method of interrogation and the arrest of an
accused without investigation and despite his co-operation with the NAB
authorities, terming it a gross violation of human rights.

Similarly, the European journalists, and those associated
with the arts and culture have strongly protested against the unjustified
illegal arrest of Mir Shakil-ur-Rahman and demanded his immediate release.
Expressing solidarity with Mir Shakil-ur-Rahman, the founding president of the
Brussels Press Club, Maria Laura Franciosi termed it absolutely condemnable act
to arrest a newspaper editor to pressurise the editorial policies. The Radio
Deutschland’s culture journalist Antje Stiebitz also strongly criticised the
long unlawful detention of the Editor-in-chief to force him to toe the
government line. Dr Ewout Klei, Editor “Dekanttekaning“ the Netherlands,
described in his detailed article how the Geo TV and the Jang Group of
newspapers are facing enormous pressures since a long time and the arrest of his
editor is continuation of the same policy to silence any independent, critical
journalistic voice in Pakistan.

Marjan Lucas, a peace and human rights activist from the
Netherlands, said Geo TV is a great independent voice of the country. Afghan
journalist from Brussels, Lialuma Sadid and G. Goris, editor of the Belgian
magazine MO, called for immediate release of the Jang-Geo Group’s Editor
in-Chief. also demanded release of Mir Shakil-ur-Rahman. The Brussels-based
Palestinian journalist and filmmaker Dr Ahamed Frassini said he is aware of
these tactics because he himself faced all that in the Israeli prisons. The
Pakistani-Norwegian filmmaker Asim Rafiqi urged authorities to free
Editor-in-Chief Mir Shakil-ur-Rahman without delay.

Earlier, the Foreign Office of the European Union had raised
the issue of arrest with Islamabad. It had also expressed concern that Mir
Shakil-ur-Rahman might fall victim to coronavirus due to carelessness and
inattention as the virus is spreading in Pakistan and across the world,
especially in situations where more than 50 per cent of the victims are people
over the age of 65.

Newspaper: The
News