On November 20, 2007, The Committee to Protect Journalists honored five journalists with its 2007 International Press Freedom Awards in a ceremony in New York. Mazhar Abbas, currently serving as Deputy Director News, in ARY ONEWORLD was one of them.

     

Despite his commitment to the profession he remained active in journalist's union and arranged several workshops for the training of journalists from print and electronic media. In the last 27 years he hold top positions in the journalist union and Press Club. He was the only journalist leader who was asked to address the federal cabinet by former premier Benazir Bhutto in 1994, on the issue of Wage Award. He led the movement after PPP government imposed ban on six newspapers and again when former premier Nawaz Sharif threatened journalists in his second tenure. He als led the journalists campaign against the ban on news channels by President Pervez Musharraf.
As an active member of International Federation of Journalists (IFJ), he was nominated as a member of Fact Finding Mission, to Sri-Lanka and also attended five-days conference in Taiwan and three days conference in Nepal. He was recently invited to address a conference in the United States, but could not attend due to personal reasons.

He also gave speeches and lectures on journalism and freedom of expression in different Universities and colleges including Karachi University, NUML University, Islamabad, International Islamic University, Islamabad, Punjab University.
 

On November 20, 2007, The Committee to Protect Journalists honored five journalists with its 2007 International Press Freedom Awards in a ceremony in New York. Mazhar Abbas, currently serving as Deputy Director News, in ARY ONEWORLD was one of them.

Abbas is a well-known fighter of press freedom in Pakistan who has worked as a journalist for 27 years and has endured repeated threats as a result of his work. He is also the Secretary General of the Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists. He also remained General Secretary of the Karachi Press Club, three times beside the President and General Secretary of the Karachi Union of Journalists, twice. During his career his life came under threats for his work. Belong to a family of journalists, his house was attacked in 1992, during which three of his brothers were badly hurt.
This is how CPJ paid tribute to him in 2007, " In May, he was one of three journalists who found bullets in envelopes attached to their cars when they came out of a late-night meeting at the Karachi Press Club. Abbas was also charged by police earlier this year after protesting the closure of three independent TV channels for reporting on anti-Musharraf demonstrations.

At the union, Abbas is leading the opposition against the Musharraf administration’s attempts to silence press criticism of the faltering military government. As an AFP correspondent in Karachi, he covered the kidnapping and murder of Wall Street Journal South Asia Bureau Chief Daniel Pearl in 2002, and the following investigations and trials."
Pakistan's Daily Times, in its editorial in 2007, paid tribute to him in these words," Mazhar Abbas, the indefatigable Secretary General of the PFUJ, has his job cut out for him. He has just received the coveted Press Freedom Award from the prestigious CPJ for his fearless devotion to the cause of journalism. There is no one more deserving than him. Now he is in the thick of battle again to protect the hard-won freedoms of journalists in this country."

US Washington Post in its editorial, "Reporting Against the Odds," and The Wall Street Journal, in editorial, "Courage and Journalism," paid tribute to his struggle in November, 2007.
 
     
     
     
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