News Blackout On Pakistan Alleged

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29865, 4 July 1962, Page 13

News Blackout On Pakistan Alleged

(-V 2 -PA. -Reuter— Copyright) LONDON, July 2. The editor of the newspaper “Dawn of Karachi,” Mr Altaf Husain, said in a memorandum issued today that there “appears to be a deliberate blackout” in Britain of news about Pakistan.

Mr Husain is chairman of the Pakistan section of the Commonwealth Press Union which held its annual conference in London recently He said serious British newspapers had not even

given minimum coverage to the formation of the new Pakistani Government after the termination of martial law

But of even graver significance was the complete blackout of news on the latest United Nations Security

Council debates on Kashmir Not a word had been published in the British press. Mr Husain said Yet “The Times’* had printed a lengthy dispatch from New Delhi giving the reaction of the Indian Prime Minister 'Mr Nehru) to the debate, thus providing its readers with a "highly tendentious. one-sided and factually incorrect version" of the situation. “It is not unreasonable tc presume.” Mr Husain said, "that important members of the CPU in Britain —and most notably the chairman of the council himself CMr Gavin Astor, chairman of the Times Publishing Cimpany) have decided to follow a news policy which implies hostility to Pakistan "Every newspaper has the right to pursue even such a policy if it so wishes, bu*. when members of the C P U of one country show such bias towards another country even in the news field, membership of an organisation like this of newspapers of two countries so involved becomes more than incongruous ” Mr Husain’s memorandum said they did not object to

editorial comment even when they regarded it as unfair, for in that field they could, and did. answer back editorially “But wilful suppression of news offends against the ethics of journalism in general. and the spirit of the CP U in particular.” he said In the Security Council debate on Kashmir, the Soviet Union cast its 100th veto to defeat an Irish resolution calling for new negotiations between Pakistan and India Rumania also cast a negative vote and Ghana and the United Arab Republic abstained The Soviet delegate. Mt Platon D Morozov, said it was a resolution reflecting United States policy on the issue The Indian Defence Minister. Mr V K. Krishna Menon, said that the Irish resolution would create "a sense of shock in India ” India had expressly informed Ireland that she would regard the submission of the draft as an unfriendly act by Ireland. The resolution would aggravate the situation and would be used in Pakistan as propaganda, he said.