Lahore, Apr 19 (IANS): More than 50 journalists including editors, columnists, media persons and media freedom organisation representatives in Pakistan have signed a petition against the ongoing curbs on freedom of expression in the country.

Initiated by Pakistani journalist Beena Sarwar, the petition stated that there was a growing trend of news that was "given" or injected into organisations, rather than allowing coverage of real news -- incidents that were truly happening, but were either not covered or were taken off air, Dawn online reported on Thursday.

"All this is giving rise to an air of ‘self-censorship' and resulting in violation of the citizens' right to information," according to the petition.

The curbs included several articles being pulled off media websites in Pakistan, removal of online editions of published articles and one media house even asking its anchors to stop doing live shows.

Some of the signatories were Saleem Asmi, Farah Zia, Hamid Mir, Imtiaz Alam, I.A. Rehman, Husain Naqi, Zahid Hussain, Kiran Nazish and Nusrat Javeed.