Special Assistant to PM on Information and Broadcasting Dr Firdous Ashiq Awan on Tuesday asked cabinet members to exercise restraint while issuing statements.
Talking to reporters at the Lahore Press Club, she said that members of the cabinet should keep in mind that they were “players in Prime Minister Imran Khan’s team”. She was speaking to journalists following the election of Arshad Ansari as the press club president.
“Recently, a public office holder fired at the frontline of the journalist community,” she said, referring to the Twitter dispute between Minister for Science and Technology Fawad Chaudhry and a journalist. She admitted that cabinet members may have like and dislikes, but said that expressing opinions must not clash with ministerial assignments. “We should not use the poisonous narrative that might affect someone’s integrity, especially the journalist community. We should put a stop to verbal diarrhea,” she said. She insisted that instead of creating problems for the premier, cabinet members should lessen them. Awan clarified that the prime minister’s ideology was not combative and that he consulted all members of his team before taking any decision even if they disagreed with him. “The final decision, however, is based on consensus and everyone must respect it,” she said.
Addressing the opposition, she said that labelling elected members with negative titles amounted to “disrespecting the sanctity of office”.
Awan insisted that people must own and respect every elected representative of the public on both provincial and federal levels. “If you label the prime minister with abusive titles, it means that jealousy and hatred have taken over your heart […] You are not just criticising the person who is occupying the chair, you are disrespecting the sanctity of the office,” she said.
“People come and go, but the sanctity of institutions and executive office should always remain intact,” she said. She further said that the efforts she had made to resolve the complaints of the journalist community were in line with Prime Minister Imran Khan’s vision for journalists. She dispelled the notion that the government was trying to drive the media against the wall, saying that the premier understood that the journalist community had strengthened his narrative which contributed to his victory in 2018 elections.
