31 May 2021 (daily Dawn)

Journalist bodies and human rights organisations on Monday condemned the move to take veteran journalist and TV show host Hamid Mir "off air".

Mir told BBC Urdu he had been informed by the Geo News management that he would "not go on air on Monday" to host his five-days-a-week show Capital Talk.

Although there was no official comment from Geo News, sources from the channel's management confirmed to Dawn.com that Mir has been sent on forced leave for some time.

The TV channel's administration had earlier confirmed the same to BBC Urdu, which quoted officials as saying that Mir would not host his talk show from Monday (today) and that "he has been sent on leave for some time".

The management said Mir was still associated with the Jang Media Group; another anchorperson has reportedly been asked to host the programme in place of Mir for now.

Mir, the longtime host of the popular Capital Talk, had just days earlier delivered a fiery speech in Islamabad calling for accountability for repeated assaults on journalists in the country. He was speaking at a protest against the recent attack on journalist and You Tuber Asad Ali Toor.

"The management asked me to either explain or refute the speech outside the [National] Press Club," Mir told BBC Urdu, adding that he asked in return "Who is asking you for this?"

"I told them if they arrest the persons who attacked Asad Toor then I am ready to appologise, let alone issue an explanation," the journalist said.

Federal Minister for Information and Broadcasting Fawad Chaudhry, meanwhile, without addressing Mir or Geo, tweeted in the evening that the government had nothing to do with the internal decisions of organisations.

"Broadcasters themselves decide which programme they have to broadcast and what its team will be," said Chaudhry, adding that all institutions were responsible for devising their policies under Article 19 of the Constitution.