London -- 30 September 2000
Mr Altaf Hussain, Founder and Leader of Muttahida Quami Movement (MQM), has strongly condemned the raid and the threatening attitude of the army monitoring team with the editor, members and staff of Dawn Group of Newspapers at Haroon House in Karachi. He deplored the manner in which the army monitoring team entered the head offices of the Dawn Group armed with lethal weapons to inspect the load of electricity consumption and meter reading. He termed this act of the army monitoring team as extra-constitutional.
Mr Hussain called this act of the army monitoring team as vindictive not only against the Dawn Group but also against the entire journalist community. He said this extra-constitutional act is tantamount to threat to the freedom of press. He said that by using these means the army monitoring team and the present military government want to make the press as their subservient on gunpoint.
Mr Altaf Hussain today spoke with Mr Saleem Aasmi, Editor of the Daily Dawn over the telephone from London, and strongly condemned this act of highhandedness and threatening behaviour of the army monitory team and sympathised with all the members of the Dawn Group who were threatened and psychologically traumatised by the army monitoring team. Mr Hussain assured his full support to the demands of the Dawn Group and other journalist community.