ISLAMABAD: Intimidation, harassment, threats, assault, kidnapping, accounts hacking, stories plagiarism are some fears expressed by a group of bloggers and human rights defenders at a three-days training workshop on Safety and Security for Bloggers and Human Rights Defenders being held on 26 to 28 Nov, 2021 at a private hotel in Islamabad. The workshop is being organized by Pakistan Press Foundation under the project Civil Society for Independent Media and Expression (CIME) in collaboration with European Union.
The workshop aims to increase safety knowledge based on various activities in order to keep bloggers and human right defenders shortlisted from various districts of Punjab, Capital Territory and Azad Kashmir safe while performing their duties. The discussion, activities and presentation in the workshop helped the participants understand the mechanism of risk assessment and identify security measures, the first aid training with CPR, chest compression and dealing with heavy bleeding during injury was also part of this workshop. Mental health issues and coping techniques for bloggers and HRDs is also addressed in the program.
Pakistan Press Foundation organized eight safety and security training sessions including Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad and also organizing ninth session in Islamabad. Participants of security workshop learn how to maintain safety in different scenarios physically and digitally, techniques to break the attack cycle, prevention and survival techniques against kidnapping were discussed, self-defense methods were also demonstrated and participants practiced each method.
Various groups of bloggers and human rights defenders commended the efforts of Pakistan Press Foundation and the European Union for organizing such training sessions and requested to continue similar training sessions for other bloggers and human rights defenders to learn techniques for safety.
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