Muhammad Tayyab
Many of the old and new Afghan refugees in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa complain that local media does not reports on their issues as they should be reported.
The refugees said that their absence from media also results into lack of awareness regarding their issues and their possible solutions.
Nasir Dawar, a Peshawar based journalist agrees with this assertion that local media does not give coverage to Afghan refugees. He said that many Afghan refugees have good understanding of journalism. “They should be inducted into newsrooms to ensure good coverage of their lives and issues,” he said.
Mr Dawar said that in addition to this, these journalists can also contribute good stories about Afghanistan. He said that local digital, print and electronic outlets should include Afghans in their teams.
“They can do good work as compared to us,” he said.
He also criticized the tendency of journalist considering themselves expert of every subject under the sun.
However, he said that at one hand, it was not on media owners’ priority while on the other hand; Pashto language print and electronic media was financially weak. Mr Dawar said that due to this reason, Afghan refugees’ coverage and opportunities for them in newsrooms were rare.
“If we talk about Afghanistan, then we need people well versed in English, Pashto and Dari,” he said. However, he said that though we people speaking English and Pashto, but what you are going to do with Dari.
Peshawar newsrooms need to hire people speaking Dari; however, there were no resources available for the purpose.
Afghan journalists on the other hand point out that the refugees were faced with plethora of issues; however, no one talked about them in media. On the other hand, they said that the refugees’ situation was deteriorating with each passing day.
They said that Afghan refugees were living in abject helpless and they needed help.
Though Afghan refugees are unhappy with Pakistani media organizations; however, on the other hand, some others have organizations have paid attention to refugees’ problems.
Johar Shah, a journalist associated with the Peshawar based Mashriq TV said that there thousands of refugees were living in Peshawar.
He said that his organization gives full coverage to the refugees.
Mr Shah said that his channel has also employed Afghan refugees as well. He said that the Mashriq TV had in its initial days had employed three Afghans refuges. However, he added that two of them returned to Afghanistan while the third later shifted to Islamabad.
Mr Shah said that their one hour bulletin has four parts dedicated to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, national while the third was dedicated to the news and reports about Afghanistan.
