ISLAMABAD: The United States strongly condemns Taliban’s alleged threats of violence against Pakistan’s media and its people.

A national daily newspaper Saturday reported receipt of a message from a Taliban spokesman in North Waziristan, warning Pakistan’s television and newspapers reporters to stop portraying the Taliban negatively or face violent retribution.

According to the newspaper, the message was delivered as a ‘last warning’ to the press shortly after a deadly ambush on a Pakistan Army convoy in that region which left 7 soldiers dead and 25 others wounded, it said. This desperate threat by the Taliban highlights their isolation. Not content to attack schools and mosques, public markets, peaceful demonstrations, police and the military, they again threaten Pakistan’s media.

Freedom of speech and of the press is enshrined in the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Constitution of Pakistan. Democratic nations reject extremists and their calls for violence against those with whom they disagree, it concluded.-
Source: Business Recorder
Date:4/24/2010