Veteran journalist continues hunger strike against arrest of Jang Geo Group Editor-in-Chief

LAHORE: A veteran journalist has launched a campaign for the release of Jang Geo Editor-in-Chief Mir Shakil-ur-Rahman by going on a hunger strike outside Lahore Press Club, reported The News on Saturday.

The 65-year-old Azhar Munir, who has a long history of principled protest campaigns for the release of ‘prisoners of conscience’ inside and outside the country, has been on a hunger strike since March 29, 2020. 

He says he is determined to carry on the strike till he has the strength to do so, even as the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government seems unmoved by growing criticism over the move to arrest MSR. 

Having penned 14 books on history and current affairs, besides dozens of booklets and pamphlets on the issues like human rights and civil liberties during a career spanning over four decades, Munir says he has been receiving threats and insults from fellow journalists, PTI supporters, and from several other individuals. 

Also read: PEMRA issues show cause notice to Geo News for 'airing unipolarity of views'

“I have been threatened of NAB [National Accountability Bureau] cases, arrest and dire consequences if I do not end the hunger strike. But I am committed to my conscience, my principles, and not to Mir Shakil-ur-Rahman or government agencies,” he said.

“It seems he has a strong soul in a frail body,” commented fellow journalist Manzoor Qadir, who joined Munir on a footpath outside the Lahore Press Club. 

Munir, who has worked for a few years at the Jang Group in the mid-90s, recalls another time when he initiated a hunger strike.

"When the Nawaz Sharif government victimised the largest media group of the country and nearly strangled its publications by stopping the newsprint supply in 1999, I had initiated a hunger strike camp at the Lahore Press Club," he recalled.

"During the mid-90s, I campaigned for Myanmar icon for civil liberties and democracy, Aung San Suu Kyi, wrote hundreds of letters to the UN, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and other world bodies," he added.

Also read: UK protests demand release of MSR, condemns shutdown of Geo

He told The News he campaigned similarly for a number of other ‘prisoners of conscience’, like the Israeli nuclear scientist and peace activist Mordechai Vanunu, who, citing his opposition to weapons of mass destruction, had revealed details of Israel's nuclear weapons programme to the British press in 1986. 

Israeli intelligence agency Mossad lured Vanunu to Italy where he was abducted, drugged and secretly transported to Israel, convicted in a secret trial and made to spend 18 years in prison, including more than 11 in solitary confinement.

The veteran journalist also ran a campaign for the release of Nigerian journalist and peace activist Ken Saro-Wiwa, who was executed by a military regime for campaigning for the rights of oppressed ethnic Ogoni people.

Azhar Munir said his father, Akbar Munir, was a noted poet of Persian and Urdu, a college lecturer and a friend of Allama Iqbal, Maulana Zafar Ali Khan, Syed Salman Nadvi, and other leaders of Pakistan Movement.

Also read: Sending MSR to jail a bid to suppress truth: Shahid Khaqan Abbasi

Munir said Prime Minister Imran Khan should have been more than thankful to the Jang Group, which had turned him into a celebrity, a captain, a social worker and a politician by highlighting his every move. “Some people have the nature of a famous insect known for biting its own well-wishers," he observed.

“Come what may, I will not budge an inch on my stance. Mir Shakil-ur-Rahman’s arrest is totally unjustified. He must be released immediately, and the rulers must avoid using NAB as a tool to silence critics,” he insisted

Azhar Munir is not only a veteran journalist with a standing of decades in the profession, but also a senior citizen who, under the prevailing circumstances, when coronavirus has been declared a pandemic, stands most vulnerable to the virus. However, he seems least bothered about the risk to his health.

While responding to a question about his presence at the hunger strike camp when the entire country is facing a lockdown, Azhar said he never feared death and always fought for his principles.

“I would rather die than surrender,” said Munir. He said that the incumbent government had adopted the method of suppressing the voice of critics though NAB, but the use of accountability body as a tool would not last long.

Originally published in The News