Islamabad: Condemning the new press Laws brought in by the Musharraf regime, prominent media organisations in Pakistan have threatened to launch an agitation for their repeal.

Accusing the military regime of attempting to "impose" the "black Laws", the All Pakistan Newspaper Society (APNS) and the Council of Pakistan Newspaper Editors (CPNE) said they have "unequivocally" rejected the newly promulgated Defamation Ordinance and the three other press Laws that were recently adopted by the Federal Cabinet.

The two newspaper bodies, which represent newspaper publishers and professional editors of the mainstream Pakistani newspapers, in a joint meeting on October 4 chalked out a joint programme of action, and set up a committee to work to create "awareness" against the new press Laws both at home and abroad to "highlight the transgression of press freedom" by the Pervez Musharraf government.

The two bodies said they would also hold periodic nation-wide strikes by newspapers and magazines to protest the actions of government to "cripple" the freedom of the press.

They accused the government of drastically altering the draft rules agreed after months of negotiations and promulgating finally a different version.

The friction between the media and the government began when the government last month announced new code of ethics for the media stipulating imprisonment and stiff fines to punish journalists for libelous and scurrilous writing.

Early, this week the government had issued a new defamation Ordinance stipulating stiff new rules for the functioning of the media.

PTI