Press Releases

Press Release

The Digital Media Alliance of Pakistan (DigiMAP) has announced its newly elected cabinet, which consists of six full and two provisional members, who will hold office until February 2025.

According to a notification issued by the association, IBC Editor Sabookh Syed has been elected as President; Balochistan Voices Editor Adnan Aamir has been elected Secretary General; and The Penpk.com Editor Shazia Mehboob has been elected Communication Secretary.

Tribal News Network (TNN) Director Tayyeb Afridi, Native MediaFounder/Video Creator Afshan Masab, and ‘Balochistan 24.com Editor Ghulam Murtaza Zehri have been elected as vice presidents from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Punjab and Balochistan, respectively.

During the quarterly meeting of DigiMAP held on March 15, 2023, with the approval of the General Body, Prism Media Executive Director Ghulam Mustafa and Pamir Times Founder Ali Ahmed are provisionally notified as the vice presidents of Sindh and Gilgit Baltistan, respectively. Since the meter organisations of the vice presidents of Sindh and GilgitBaltistan are not full members of DigiMAP, they have been temporarily included in the cabinet for now. However, with the full membership of their respective institutions in the DigiMAP, they will also become permanent members of the cabinet.

DigiMAP is an alliance of non-legacy independent digital media platforms in Pakistan. The founders of DigiMAP were concerned about the lack of support for digital media in Pakistan. They believe that digital media is the future of journalism and communication, and the founding members are committed to promoting its growth and development in Pakistan.

Its vision is to create a vibrant digital media ecosystem in Pakistan that is open, inclusive, and ethical. They believe that digital media has the power to inform, educate, and empower people, and their teamis dedicated to using this power for the greater good.

It is an inclusive organization that welcomes all individuals and organizations that are interested in promoting digital media in Pakistan. Currently, they have 25 members from all over Pakistan. The day-to-day affairs of DigiMAP are looked after by the elected cabinet

Press Release

The Digital Media Alliance of Pakistan (DigiMAP) strongly condemns social media trolling of editors of Naya Daur. The DigiMAP while expressing solidarity with Naya Daur’s editors, Raza Rumi, Murtaza Solangi, and Najam Sethi, demands immediate action against the political workers involved in consistent trolling and personal attacks on the senior journalists.

The statement issued by the DigiMAP management on Thursday, states that DigiMAP stands with its editors and with all journalists in Pakistan who have been facing threats, harassment, intimidation and insults from mainstream Pakistani politicians, their supporters and armies of online trolls.

It also reiterates its firm position on citizens’ rights, freedom of speech, freedom of expression, and reminds authorities and the general public that journalism is not a crime.

In their misguided attempts to blame everyone but themselves, zealous supporters of former PM Imran Khan continue to distort facts and misrepresent statements to justify and propagate vitriolic narratives.

It is a sad state of affairs when people exercise their freedom of speech to demand that someone else be deprived of the same freedom, the statement adds.

A Twitter user whose profile shows that she is a recent graduate of King Edward Medical College Lahore, claimed that Raza Rumi, Murtaza Solangi and Najam Sethi were “inciting state violence”.

She went on to write that the three were “portraying brutal crackdown on political workers as the only solution as opposed to dialogue” and alleged that they were “urging the government to continue its various human rights abuses”.

In a subsequent tweet, she made a somewhat tangential argument by first saying that the Pakistani establishment was “known for its bad HR record” and then equating a “shut up call” with “custodial torture”.

She makes an unsubstantiated attribution once again, by claiming that the “shut up call” was to be given to a political party “having highest number of women & youth as its supporters”. It is surprising that Ms. Nawaz would equate a “shut up call” — a verbal request to ask someone to stop yelling — with a call to physical violence, or with a justification for police brutality or state-sanctioned torture.

Not only did the Twitter user and several others misconstrued the statement made by Raza Rumi and Najam Sethi in the video clip she shared, but they also manipulated the translation of Urdu words to deliberately misrepresent, instead relying on the video clip’s incorrect subtitles to make her point for her.

In the video clip circulated by social media accounts affiliated with PTI, Raza Rumi is erroneously translated as saying “such things should be dealt with by force”, when what he actually said in Urdu was “such things should be dealt with strictly” or “sternly” as opposed to “with force”.

After last week’s clashes between police and PTI supporters at Zaman Park, PTI supporters use terms like “police brutality” and “state fascism” to oversimplify the situation, and more importantly to try and deflect all blame from themselves and their leader Imran Khan. This is the only logical causation that explains why PTI troll farms found a ten-month-old video, wherein they could misconstrue statements to claim that some people were “cheering” or “calling for” something which only happened last week.

In spite of its attempts to stifle the voice, and destroy the careers, of those whom they disagree with, the political party and its supporters must understand that the rule of law is equal for everyone, and that their messianic leader has been receiving lenient treatment for quite some time — even though he would vehemently disagree.

It is a matter of record that Mr. Rumi has always opposed the “long history of state violence and brutality in Pakistan”, and that the former PM was also not only a part, but also a defender and beneficiary, of the Pakistani establishment’s high-handedness between 2016 and 2022.

After decades of practicing self-righteousness and intolerance, Pakistanis can no longer agree to disagree with each other on politics. This sad state of affairs is largely due to the continued success of the former PM’s virtue signaling propaganda, and his deliberate obfuscation of objective reality to suit his own narratives and political ambitions.

The online trolling has raised serious questions over the safety of journalists working in difficult circumstances.

It is to mention here that Naya Daur media group is an online media platform working on public interest journalism and raises voices for the voiceless people of the region and due to its critical journalism, the media platform its team often faces criticism in the government circles.

Press Release

ISLAMABAD

As many as five digital media journalists were honored with awards for their best reporting on diversity and pluralism.

The awards were given to the journalists for their best reporting on religious minorities in Pakistan under the Diversity and Pluralism Project.

The “Diversity and Pluralism in Media Awards 2022” was jointly organized by the Institute of Research, Advocacy and Development (IRADA), the Digital Media Alliance of Pakistan (DigiMAP), and the Women Journalists Association of Pakistan (WJAP) on Friday in Islamabad. A cake-cutting ceremony was also arranged on the occasion of the second anniversary of DigiMAP.

During the project,  IRADA, DigiMap and WJAP organised a series of workshops for women journalists on “Tackling Marginalization through Women’s Visibility in Digital Journalism” to highlight the issues related to marginalised communities, including women, minorities, transgender persons, and others.

Speaking at the event, IRADA Executive Director Aftab Alam said that the purpose of the training was to highlight issues of marginalised communities in digital spaces, such as women from religious minority backgrounds, human rights, and people with disabilities; and how media persons can report on these issues.

Aftab Alam also briefed the participants on why the project focusing on religious minorities and other marginalised communities was launched.

Explaining the marginalization or isolation of religious minorities, focusing on implicit and explicit biases as well as intra-sectional issues and the constitutional framework of fundamental human rights, he said the process should continue to highlight the issues of marginalised communities in Pakistan.

IMP Adnan Rehmat, while appreciating the role of digital media platforms in highlighting issues of public interest, particularly marginalised communities in Pakistan, stated,‘The digital media platforms under the banner of DigiMAPare doing the job that the mainstream media should do.”

Dr Ishtiaq Ahmed, a member Planning Commission of Pakistan, extended the commission’s full support for promoting public interest journalism and said this is the real form of journalism on which the media should focus.

The purpose of the session was to highlight how covering religious minorities in journalism is crucial for creating a peaceful, democratic and diverse Pakistan.

DigiMAP President Sabookh Syed informed the participants on the two-year journey of the DigiMAP.

During the sessions, the trainers also generated debates on the explicit bias which is woven into the political, economic and social systems, including the political, economic, social, and cultural exclusion of the marginalised communities.