Journeys to democracy

Maya Khan: fired for refusing to tender an unconditional apology

From: Dr Kamran Iqbal (cc’d to signatories below)
Date: Sat, 28 Jan 2012
To: Zafar Siddiqi

Dear Mr Siddiqi,

Thank you for your prompt and courageous response. We appreciate the moral courage of SAMAA TV’s stance. We hope you will continue to lead by example in developing a code of ethics and directives, which you have issued for your channel that we urge, should be made public on your website. You may want to have a look at the code of conduct guidelines of the Society of Professional Journalists, to consult while drafting your guidelines.

Also, we would like to mention here that in Ms. Maya Khan’s team which is being terminated, innocent people should not be axed, and protection for those lower ranking workers, who had no say in what Ms. Maya was doing should duly be taken care of.

We will support you in taking the step to make directives and code of ethics and conduct guidelines made public. As a citizen media consumer group, would promote and spread these improvements in other channels one by one as there had been numerous examples which deserve similar attention and correction and it is clear that flaw has been at policy design level. A group of us would be happy to meet you and/or anyone you designate to initiate a discussion on this if you desire.

We look forward to seeing the directives on your website to share with the public.

Sincerely,

Ali Kazmi, Student, Islamabad
Ali Taj, Hedge Fund manager, Winchester Fund, Cerritos, California
Ally Adnan, Director, Huawei technologies, Dallas, TX
Amna Chishty, marketing consultant, Canada
Asadullah Khan, Head of Programming, Capital TV, Islamabad
Asif Alam, Financial Services Executive, New York, NY, USA
Asif Sattar, Admin Operations at Kiers Facilities Ltd, Slough, England
Beena Sarwar, journalist, Cambridge MA/ Karachi, Pakistan
Danielle Gehrmann, linguist, Sydney, Australia
Hassan Turi, student, Agricultural university, Peshawar
Hira Kamal, concerned citizen and media person, Jeddah
Syed Hussein El-Edroos, Business Development & Training Manager, Islamabad
Prof. Dr. Ijaz Khan, Chairman, Department of International Relations, University of Peshawar, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan
Dr. Kamran Iqbal, Founder & CEO, Human Voice Initiative, Karachi, Pakistan
Kamyla Marvi, Citizen, Karachi Pakistan
Kiran Nazish, Freelance Journalist
Meera Ghani, Concerned Citizen, Lahore
Mira Hashmi, film critic and teacher, Lahore
Mohsin Sayeed, journalist, Karachi
Muhammad Faraz Faheem, Senior Software Engineer, Karachi, Pakistan
Munnazir Aziz, video producer, Lodhran, Pakistan
Nadia Fazal Jamil, actor, Lahore, Pakistan
Naheed Tofiq Mooraj, Proprietor of Candle Works, Karachi
Naziha Syed Ali, journalist, Karachi
Nighat Dad, advocate, Lahore
Noman Quadri, concerned citizen, Karachi
Dr. Osama Siddique, Law Professor, Lahore
Rabia Akhtar. PhD candidate, Kansas State University, USA/Rawalpindi, Pakistan
Raza Bashir, Corporate Banking, Karachi
Saadia Toor, professor, New York,
Saba Hamid, Actor, Lahore, Pakistan
Sahar Habib Ghazi, Journalist, Palo Alto, California
Shah Hayat Ahmad, Citizen, Karachi, Pakistan
Siraj Khan, Financial Executive, Boston MA USA
Shayan Afzal Khan, a concerned citizen, Islamabad
Tammie Mahmud, Trainer & Education Program Developer, Boca Raton, FL
Usmann Rana, student, Lahore

Filed under: Media | Tagged: ethics, maya khan, Media, Pakistan, samaa tv |