Journalists from South Asia at a conference in Dhaka yesterday urged the leaders of the seven Saarc countries to allow free movement of media personnel within this region without visa to perform their professional duties

Foreign ministers of three Saarc countries -- India, Pakistan and Bangladesh -- had earlier assured the journalists of such facility but it is still to be implemented, they said.

Speaking as chief guest at the conference, Information Minister M Shamsul Islam said Bangladesh is taking steps towards this end but this is an issue that needs a consensus among all the Saarc countries.

“I think the visa regime for bonafide journalists on professional visits should be liberalised as far as possible,” he noted.

South Asian Free Media Association (Safma) organised the three-day Saarc journalists conference styled 'Journalists Beyond Frontiers' being held at a city hotel.

The information minister said freedom of movement of journalists is a corollary to press freedom.

Denial of free movement to journalists amounts to circumscribing press freedom. This should be particularly emphasised in respect of movement of journalists within the Saarc countries, he felt.

Moreover, media products of Saarc countries, including TV programmes, should also be allowed free movement within the region. This will go a long way in removing the existing information gap, the minister said.

In his keynote address, Dr Muhammad Yunus, managing director of Grameen Bank, said, “Saarc is our future. Getting people together is the best way to overcome any distrust …If we can't overcome poverty, there is no way to achieve other things. We have to remove the things that create poverty.”

Reazuddin Ahmed, president of Safma, said the organisation is lobbying for inclusion of a provision on free movement of journalists in the Saarc states in the declaration of the Dhaka summit. “We tried for this in the Islamabad and Kathmandu summits but we could not succeed.”

Imtiaz Alam, secretary general of Safma, also stressed free movement of journalists within the region.

Gopal Prasad Thapaliya of Nepal said journalists in Nepal are fighting for restoration of democracy in the country. They are facing harassment for their views on human rights, press freedom and other issues but the authorities do not allow those to be exposed.

Zahiduzzaman Faruque, secretary general of Safma Bangladesh, M Ziauddin of Pakistan, Lakshman Gunasekera of Sri Lanka and KK Katyal of India, among others, spoke at the inaugural session of the conference.