{"id":2130,"date":"2019-07-12T10:39:56","date_gmt":"2019-07-12T10:39:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dailyausaf.com\/en\/?p=2130"},"modified":"2019-07-12T10:39:56","modified_gmt":"2019-07-12T10:39:56","slug":"foreign-minister-qureshis-session-boycotted-at-london-conference-over-free-speech-concerns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dailyausaf.com\/en\/pakistan\/foreign-minister-qureshis-session-boycotted-at-london-conference-over-free-speech-concerns\/","title":{"rendered":"Foreign Minister Qureshi&#8217;s session boycotted at London conference over &#8216;free speech concerns&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi was\u00a0greeted by empty seats at a media conference in London as journalists protested over \u2018free speech concerns\u2019 in Pakistan.<\/p>\n<p>Qureshi, who is in the British capital on an official visit, attended the #DefendMediaFreedom conference with journalists posting videos of a nearly deserted hall.<\/p>\n<p>Qureshi was questioned about the censorship in Pakistan.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBelieve you me, there is no question of gagging or controlling media,\u201d he\u00a0told the conference co-hosted by Britain and Canada.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat time has gone and with the new social media, the advent of social media, even if you want to gag you can gag nothing.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The foreign minister also had a heated argument with a Canadian social media activist at the event after the latter accused him of getting his Twitter account blocked on Islamabad\u2019s complaint.<\/p>\n<p>In the video footage, which went viral, it can be seen that the Canadian man says: \u201cYou censored me, I had a Twitter account here [in Canada].\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMy tweet produced Pakistan\u2019s blasphemy law and your government had my account taken down, so can you tell me why your Islamic supremacy in Pakistan is silencing my journalistic freedom in Canada,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou sir should be ashamed, who are you to silence me in Canada\u2026. Answer? You don\u2019t like free speech,\u201d the journalist roared at the foreign minister.<\/p>\n<p>FM Qureshi responded by saying: \u201cFirst of all you want your sentiments to be respected but look at the tone in which you are speaking\u2026.. Is that the correct way?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The minister said that he did not block his Twitter account. \u201cYou have double standards and what you are propping up a certain sections agenda. I have been respectful to you.\u201d<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Quite embarrassing  exchange with Shah Mehmood Qureshi in London today in the <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/DefendMediaFreedom?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#DefendMediaFreedom<\/a> conference. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/moNk42sIVs\">pic.twitter.com\/moNk42sIVs<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Murtaza Solangi (@murtazasolangi) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/murtazasolangi\/status\/1149317520073089025?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">July 11, 2019<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi was\u00a0greeted by empty seats at a media conference in London as journalists protested over \u2018free speech concerns\u2019 in Pakistan. Qureshi, who is in the British capital on an official visit, attended the #DefendMediaFreedom conference with journalists posting videos of a nearly deserted hall. Qureshi was questioned about the censorship [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":2131,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"aside","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,2,8,3],"tags":[309,310],"class_list":["post-2130","post","type-post","status-publish","format-aside","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-pakistan","category-technology","category-world","tag-foreign-minister","tag-shah-mehmood-qureshi","post_format-post-format-aside"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyausaf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2130","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyausaf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyausaf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyausaf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyausaf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2130"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyausaf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2130\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyausaf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2131"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyausaf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2130"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyausaf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2130"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyausaf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2130"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}