Pakistan halts reporters’ symbolic attempt to reach Kashmir

25/08/2019

This news has been read 12149 times!

Pakistani transgender persons chant anti India slogans during a demonstration to express solidarity with Indian Kashmiris, in Lahore, Pakistan, Saturday, Aug. 24, 2019. Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi said in Islamabad that he spoke with United Nations Secretary General António Guterres and discussed India’s human rights violations and the security situation in Indian-controlled Kashmir. The banner read ‘We strongly condemn the oppression against innocent Kashmiris’. (AP Photo/K.M. Chaudary)

CHINARI, Pakistan (AP) – Pakistani police have stopped hundreds of journalists from symbolically trying to cross the highly militarized border into Indian-controlled Kashmir.
The journalists’ leader, Zafeer Baba, said Saturday’s protest was an attempt to report on the situation in Kashmir. India has imposed a sweeping media clampdown there since Aug. 5, when it downgraded the autonomy of the portion of Kashmir under its control.
The region has since been under a harsh military curfew, with thousands detained and all communication and the internet cut. Authorities started easing restrictions last Saturday.
Muslim-majority Kashmir is divided between Pakistan and India and is claimed by both in its entirety.
Pakistani police officer Arshad Naqvi said the journalists’ vehicles were stopped around seven kilometers (four miles) from the Line of Control, which divides the Himalayan region

This news has been read 12149 times!

25/08/2019