Imphal: All Manipur Working Journalists’ Union (AMWJU) and prominent editors on Tuesday condemned the ‘threat’ from some militants that their press statement should be published in local dailies without editing.
A spokesman of AMWJU said the executive members of the union and prominent editors held an emergency meeting to discuss the militants’ threat to scribes and strongly condemned it.
He said there were so many militant factions in the state and if a press statement was published after properly editing it and checking it as per guidelines issued by the PCI, another faction would threaten the media persons and media houses for publishing it.
He appealed to the militant outfits not to interfere in the functioning of the press as journalists were serving the public.
A particular militant outfit has said it would target mediapersons, newspaper distributors and newspaper hawkers if their statement was not published in verbatim by local media.
Sources in the media houses said they would not publish the statement following instructions from the AMWJU. They could not work freely because of the threat.
AMWJU sources said the matter has been brought to the notice of the state HM Gaikhangam who assured the union that action would be taken to prevent any untoward incident. (PTI)
