Mazhar Abbas

Mazhar Abbas is a Pakistani journalist. He was the deputy director of ARY News Television, the bilingual news channel in Pakistan, and the secretary general of the PFUJ. He is also brother of DG ISPR Major General Ather Abbas.^[1]

Abbas, who has worked as a journalist for nearly thirty years, has received multiple threats as a result of his work. After protesting the closing of three independent TV channels for their reporting on demonstrations against President Musharraf, Abbas was charged by police in early 2007. In May 2007, he and two other journalists found white envelopes containing bullets placed on their cars.^[1]

Career and achievements

Mazhar started writing when he was still a student at Karachi university. He wrote for Nawa-e-waqt at that time. After graduating he worked for The Star, which was a leading evening English newspaper from Pakistan’s economic hub i.e. Karachi.

Later on he wrote for an American magazine for 10 years then he also wrote for Dawn which is the country’s largest English language newspaper. Then he worked for Out look India which is an Indian newspaper. He was also the bureau chief of AFP.

In 1992 he joined Pakistan television but still continued his work in print media. Then in 2002 he hosted news commentary programs on ARY and in the same year he covered the kidnapping and murder of wall street journal south Asia bureau chief Daniel Pearl as an AFP correspondent. In 2007 he joined ARY one world now known as ARY news and became its Deputy Director. He also had been elected to several union positions including the secretary of Karachi Press Club three times. He was the former secretary general of Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists. He did a show “spot light” on Hum TV. After that he did a weekly talk show “Do Tok” on ARY in which he interviewed some of the country’s most controversial and prominent military figures. Later on he became the Director of Current Affairs in Express News.

In 2009, the Missouri Medal of Honor was given to him for his services in the field of journalism, he was one of five journalists awarded the International Press Freedom Award from the committee to protect journalists in 2007. The award is given for journalists who show courage in defending press freedom in the face of attacks, threats or imprisonment. In 2010 He was awarded by the Human rights society of Pakistan for all the work he has done for the freedom of journalists.He has been working in media for almost 35 years and wrote 5000 articles and contributed in 400 shows

Personal life

Mazhar has three brothers Zaffar Abbas who is editor in DAWN, Major General Athar Abbas who is former DG ISPR; and Azhar Abbas who is the current Head of GEO News.

References

1. "Mazhar Abbas - TV journalist, Pakistan - Awards - Committee to Protect Journalists". Cpj.org. 2007-11-27. Retrieved 2012-02-02.