For the first time in 16 years, The Daily Star received a call from the press information officer (PIO) of the information ministry very gently reminding us of the state of emergency declared by the government and also that caution in publishing news was in order. On being asked what "caution" precisely meant, he was vague and non-committal and requested us to "understand" the situation.

Understand we do that this country was liberated at the cost of three million lives, then there was the struggle for establishing democracy which also needed a great amount of sacrifice by the people. Finally, we won press freedom -- a prized possession of any civilised society. So we are not willing to compromise even a bit of it, as we were co-travellers with the people in the fight against the oppressive forces opposed to freedom of any kind. The free press has served the people well and will continue to do so in future.

We also notice that a directive has been issued to consult the ISPR before any news about the army is published. We have always highlighted the dignity and professional excellence of the army whenever the situation called for. But it is the ISPR which could not always respond to our queries, thanks to its own limitations, when we tried to contact it for getting conformation or otherwise of any news.

Why has the ISPR felt the need to serve such a notice on the media is beyond our comprehension. We think relationship with the media is being soured quite unnecessarily by some people who have no idea how the world has changed, and how it is counter productive to try to harness the press.

There is no doubt that the caretaker government is ill advised to try and gag the press -- which will definitely create a conflict situation between the government and the press. It will also lower our image to the international community.

We demand that the chief adviser immediately issue a statement re-asserting his commitment to free press.