In Pakistan, journalists' fear and censorship grow even as fatal violence declines

[WaLeEdK2]

It’s about time. Journalist are not holy cows that can’t be touched.

 

[Peaceful Civilian]

Excellent work. Beat the fvk out of 'em mercilessly. Absolutely zero tolerance for corrupt journalists.

Don't like it here? Fvck off to Jewland or Rapistan.

Journalist just collects, writes , distributes , or current information to the public. It may be right or wrong but We should not act like dictator. If you don't like particular information it doesn't mean we should attack them . Try to win debate through Pen, talk instead of gun and stick.

 

[Thorough Pro]

You missed some stories from 1948 and 1952, by the way how is your presidents war on "Fake" media going?

We enjoy clowns like you lecturing us on media and freedom when you people can't even tolerate silent expressions.

Watch this you piece of shit and go hang yourself if you have an ounce of shame.

@mods why don't you ban this fucking troll?

Acts of Intimidation: In Pakistan, journalists' fear and censorship grow even as fatal violence declines

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Published September 12, 2018

Islamabad

The near-fatal attack on investigative journalist Ahmad Noorani last October stood out for one reason: its brazenness. Assailants trailed Noorani’s car for miles before attacking him with a tire iron on a busy Islamabad street. The journalist, who covers sensitive political issues that often involve the military, was saved only through the intervention of passersby. The attack followed a pattern all too familiar to Pakistan’s press. Nearly a year later, no arrests, just silence and an unmistakable message that those who report critically on sensitive subjects, including the military, the courts, or religion, should tread carefully.

The deterioration in the climate for press freedom in Pakistan accompanied a reduction in murders and attacks against the media. Journalists and press freedom advocates say the two trends are linked, with measures the military took to stomp out terrorism directly resulting in pressure on the media. Privately, senior editors and journalists say that conditions for the free press are as bad as when the country was under military dictatorship, and journalists were flogged and newspapers forced to close.

When CPJ traveled to Karachi, Islamabad, Peshawar, Lahore, and Okara earlier this year, journalists, including freelancers and those from established media companies, painted a picture of a media under siege. Many traced the changes to two events in 2014: a shooting that injured Geo TV anchor Hamid Mir and led to a fallout among media groups and with the military, and the aftermath of a terrorist attack in Peshawar that left over 130 students dead.

The military garnered widespread praise for its crackdown on militancy after the school attack, which resulted in a sharp decline of terrorist incidents—and in turn, violence against journalists. Yet the stepped-up activity put the military in position to exert even greater control.

The military already wields influence and power in Pakistan, where it is deeply embedded in society, as well as the country’s economic and political systems. The armed forces are seen widely as an effective institution that holds the nation together, and offers protection. To the east, Pakistan faces India, a far larger and powerful neighbor that is considered hostile, and with whom it has a territorial dispute over Kashmir. To the west is Afghanistan, unstable and with a porous, mountainous border that creates obstacles to security. Internationally, the U.S. has used Pakistan as a staging area for operations in Afghanistan, even as it launches drone strikes against militants on Pakistani territory—an issue of nationalist ire.

While the military submits to the formalities of civilian rule, it sees itself as a bulwark against what some view as the chaos of democratic politics. But it remains sensitive to criticism or allegations, such as its apparent support for terrorist groups in neighboring countries, including the Afghan Taliban and Lashkar-e-Taiba, which is accused of staging the 2008 Mumbai terrorist attack.

Pakistani paramilitary, pictured in Lahore in July 2018. The country’s powerful military restricts reporting by barring access and encouraging self-censorship. (AP/K.M. Chaudary)

The military has quietly, but effectively, set restrictions on reporting: from barring access to regions including Baluchistan where there is armed separatism and religious extremism, to encouraging self-censorship through direct and indirect methods of intimidation, including calling editors to complain about coverage and even allegedly instigating violence against reporters.

The military, intelligence, or military-linked and political groups were the suspected source of fire that resulted in half of the 22 journalist murders in the past decade, according to CPJ research. Hence it is easy to see how the military’s widening reach is viewed as a source of intimidation. The military has clashed with Pakistan’s elected government, which tried and ultimately failed to assert civilian control. Journalists find themselves in the middle of this battle, struggling to report while staying out of trouble.

Issues including religion, land disputes, militants, and the economy can all spark retaliation—and laws such as the Pakistan Protection Ordinance, a counterterrorism law that allows people to be detained without charge for 90 days, are used to retaliate against critical reporting. Female journalists must navigate additional pressures when reporting in religiously conservative areas, such as Khyber Pakhtunkhwa or rural districts.

A detailed request for comment on this report, emailed to Major General Asif Ghafoor, spokesman for the armed forces, was not answered. General Ghafoor earlier did not respond to a request for a meeting. A scheduled interview with the then information minister in Islamabad was cancelled at the last minute by the government.

With high-profile attacks, like the failed assassination of Geo TV’s Mir, journalists say they are often forced to play it safe by toning down or avoiding controversial but newsworthy stories. Sometimes, as Noorani found, even the briefest lapse in security can expose a journalist to near-fatal consequences.

Noorani, who writes for the daily paper, The News, admits he made a mistake before his attack. For the first time in years, he said during an interview in Islamabad, he used an unencrypted phone line to make an appointment for the next day. Usually he uses an encrypted app to prevent others from eavesdropping on conversations. Somebody, he doesn’t know exactly who, must have been listening in, he said.

Investigative reporter Ahmad Noorani, pictured in a hospital after being attacked in Islamabad in October 2017. (AP/B.K. Bangash)

When Noorani started off on a 12-mile (20 km) drive from his home on October 27, windows down on a pleasant day, neither he nor his driver noticed the motorcycles tailing the car. When the car entered one of the few stretches along the route with no video surveillance, one of the motorbikes pulled in front of the car and stopped. Noorani’s driver tried to maneuver away, but one of the motorbikes spun faster around the car and, at roughly 25 miles per hour, the rider stretched through the open window, and grabbed the ignition key, forcing Noorani’s car to stop.

It was then, Noorani said, that he made his second mistake. Seeing what he thought were a few harmless teenagers whom he took to be students, Noorani stepped out of the car. The apparent students attacked him with knives, cutting him on the back of his head. One took a hard, well-aimed swing to his left temple with a tire iron, knocking Noorani to the ground. Only the intervention of construction workers interrupted the attacker, poised for a second blow to the head in what doctors told Noorani would likely have killed or incapacitated him for life. His attackers fled. Noorani spent four days in hospital. His driver was also injured.

Who attacked Noorani, and why? Like so much else that happens to journalists in Pakistan, precisely identifying culprits isn’t easy. The police investigation, said Noorani, turned up nothing aside from evidence that the attack was well-planned. And yet, the answers come swiftly from journalists and others whom CPJ asked about the attack: “the establishment,” “the deep state,” “the powers that be,” or, from the more brave, “the military” or even “the ISI”—Pakistan’s powerful Inter-Services Intelligence agency.

***
Pakistan has had multiple military coups though, nominally, today it’s ruled by an elected civilian government. The previous government, led by the Pakistan Muslim League—PML-N—failed to win re-election on July 25, with its leader, former Prime Minister Nawaz Sherif, jailed on corruption charges just before the vote. Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), won a plurality of seats and he was sworn in as prime minister on August 18, heading a coalition government.

Pakistan’s constitution guarantees freedom of the press and access to information, and the country has a large and robust media industry, including extensive privately held broadcast news. And yet, as CPJ found, true press freedom is elusive. While the military is not solely responsible for the pressures facing the media, its hands can be found almost everywhere.

CPJ’s 2013 special report on Pakistan found near complete impunity after a multi-year spike in the murders of journalists, along with an increase in terror attacks. While impunity remains an unsolved issue—Pakistan has appeared in every annual Impunity Index—CPJ research shows that fewer journalists are being killed in retaliation for their work.

Students and activists gather by images of the victims of the 2014 Peshawar school massacre. A military crackdown after the attack helped reduce violence against the press, but increased self-censorship, journalists say. (AFP/Arif Ali)

Journalists and press freedom advocates said the decline in press violence came after the military’s swift response to the December 2014 attack on the Army Public School in Peshawar, when gunmen affiliated with the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan or “Pakistan Taliban,” an Islamist group that shares an ideology with, but is separate from, the Afghan militants, killed over 145 people, including 132 students.

The army launched attacks in militant-controlled areas. It also set up paramilitary forces, including the Rangers in Karachi, which was hit by violence associated with the secular political party, Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) or the Frontier Corps, in the western provinces of Baluchistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. The MQM is accused of carrying out attacks on journalists, withpolice in 2011 saying they suspected it of being involved in the murder of Geo TV’s Wali Khan Babar—a claim the group denied. “There is no more pressure on us from the MQM,” a senior newspaper editor in Karachi, who asked to remain anonymous because of the sensitivity of the topic, told CPJ. “That has gone.”

While a drop in the murders of journalists is good news, the threat of attack remains. Many journalists and editors said a widespread sense of intimidation has led to self-censorship on issues that may provoke government officials, militant groups, religious extremists, or of course, the military.

During a conversation in Islamabad, Iqbal Khattak, founder of the journalist safety group Freedom Network, said threats to journalists haven’t gone away, even if the source and character has evolved. “If you look at Karachi,” he said, “there was a political party which was accused of intimidating, harassing, taking journalists … away. This threat has been significantly taken out and the force that took this threat out is itself now a threat to journalists and the media houses.” This phenomenon, he said, can be seen across the country.

Owais Aslam Ali, secretary general of the Pakistan Press Foundation, a non-profit training and advocacy group, said that a more cautious approach to covering sensitive topics—essentially self-censorship—accounts for much of the reduction in violence. Ali, who has led the foundation since 1992, said that the long, slow march toward greater press freedom in Pakistan has gone in reverse over the past four years.

The underlying reason for caution is often fear of retaliation as the military exerts control and seeks to retain its influence and position under civilian rule.

Consequences are harsh for journalists who attempt to push back.

In October 2016—days after Cyril Almeida, a columnist for the English-language daily, Dawn, wrote about a clash within the Cabinet between leaders of the thenruling PML-N party and the military—the journalist’s name was added to the “Exit Control List.” The list, maintained by the Interior Ministry, contains names of individuals barred by authorities from leaving the country.

Almeida’s report—known as the “Dawn leaks”—described how the government warned the military that Pakistan faced international isolation unless it cracked down on Islamist groups accused of attacks beyond its borders. The report said that the prime minister’s younger brother Shahbaz Sharif, the then chief minister of Punjab province, accused the military of working to free militants arrested by authorities.

The military’s reaction to the article, which exposed behind-the-scenes activities that it routinely denies, was fierce. “The military said, ‘You have undermined our position by leaking the contents of that meeting,’” said Zaffar Abbas, as he sat behind his desk in a large but spare office at Dawn’s headquarters, beneath a framed edition of the paper’s reporting on the 1947 birth of Pakistan.

A committee of inquiry composed of military and civilian officials, acting through the Ministry of the Interior, recommended that the All Pakistan Newspapers Society—an independent trade association with power to impose fines and bans—take disciplinary action against Dawn, Abbas, and Almeida. No action was taken, and Dawn never divulged the identity of its source, even as two cabinet ministers and a senior civil servant lost their jobs over the “leak” of information the government claimed wasn’t true.

“The Dawn leaks story persists because the military-civilian conflict has not gone away,” said Abbas.

Indeed, the military has hardly disguised its contempt for Sharif or the PML-N over his administration’s efforts to impose greater control over the military which, under the constitution, answers to the elected government.

Noorani’s investigative reporting delved into this tense relationship. Subsequent to the Dawn story, then-Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif came under Supreme Court scrutiny over alleged corruption. The leader was later stripped from office and banned from politics for life after the court ruled that he was unfit to hold office. In a series of stories in June and July 2017, Noorani cast doubt on the integrity of the process that produced evidence for the court.

While he never directly accused the military of wrongdoing, Noorani said that members of the military phoned him to express their displeasure. “I just asked them to point out factual errors,” said Noorani, adding that they failed to do so. Sensing an increasingly tense atmosphere three weeks before he was attacked, Noorani halted his reporting and signed off from Twitter.

“Most important people know who was behind my attack,” said Noorani, who refers to his assailants as being backed by “the establishment.” The attack, he said, “was a clear message to the media, that all the journalists who are critical of certain wrong things in the establishment, if anyone crosses the red line, if they will write the truth, they will have to face the same consequences.”

Noorani has returned to work, but for the time being is staying away from heavy-hitting stories.

****

Even covering sensitive issues seemingly unrelated to what Noorani referred to as “the establishment” can result in retaliation.

"The mindset now is to control the total narrative and reduce the diversity of opinion, so anything that is going against their narrative, they see as a threat,” Azhar Abbas, managing director of Geo News, said as he discussed the attack on Noorani with CPJ in February.

[Azhar Abbas is the brother of Zaffar, whom CPJ also interviewed for this report.]

Fawad Hasan, pictured in Karachi, says he was beaten and threatened by a group over his reporting on a leftist leader. (CPJ)

Which helps to explain the case of Fawad Hasan, who was threatened over his reporting on labor issues and attacked over his coverage of a leftist political leader.

With his long hair, wispy beard, earrings, bird tattoos on his neck and bangles on his arms, Hasan comes right out of central casting for the role he’s chosen: young, idealistic, leftist, and aiming—through his journalism—to help right the wrongs of the world. “This goes hand-in-hand: journalism and activism,” Hasan said in a Karachi hotel. “I learned some basic skills, for example, how to report, how to be unbiased, how to be impartial when you are reporting, how to write in a way that people do read it.”

He wrote for established newspapers and magazines including the Daily Timesand Dawn Images on issues such as minorities, people with disabilities, the harassment of women, and “disappeared” people.

At The Express Tribune, he pushed into a new topic: labor. Hasan started with anexposé of alleged labor law violations by the Pakistani clothier Khaadi. He followed up in October 2017 with a report on labor practices by foreign companies—a sensitive issue in Pakistan as the country tries to encourage more foreign investment.

The story has since been removed from the Express Tribune’s website. The Express Tribune did not respond to CPJ’s request for comment, sent via WhatsApp, about why the story was removed.

Shortly after the report was published, a friend of Hasan’s who was previously detained, warned that the ISI was after him.

Then, on December 29, 2017, two motorcycles, followed by a car, tried to block Hasan’s motorbike on the streets of Karachi. Hasan managed to speed away. After hiding out for three days (when his ever-active Twitter account went silent) Hasan said he met with an officer who showed him a dossier the agency kept on him. “[He] told me very clearly, ‘If you dare write again, we’ll break your head,’” Hasan said. The officer told Hasan writing on labor issues amounted to “anti-state” activity. “He was being very decent, but still I was very much scared,” Hasan said, adding that he agreed to stop writing about the issues.

Labor issues weren’t the only sensitive issue Hasan was covering. While at Karachi University, Hasan studied with Hasan Zafar Arif, a leftist professor of philosophy and deputy convener of the MQM’s London faction. Hasan wrote afeature about Arif when he was released from six months in jail over charges relating to the party’s outlawed leader. When Arif died in suspicious circumstances on January 14, Hasan attended a memorial with the intent of writing a story.

As Hasan was leaving, two men in plain clothes told him to come with them. Hasan said the men threatened him, but promised not to hurt him, so he followed them to a building on the campus which is controlled by Sindi Rangers, a paramilitary group deployed by the army to end militant violence in the city. After a few minutes, the men placed a hood on Hasan, and more people entered the room and began to beat him. Hasan said they told him, “Now we’ll put a stick inside your *** and it will come out of your mouth. Now we’ll teach you a lesson,” and “You are against Pakistan, you are against [the] Pakistan army.” Hasan said he insisted he was merely a journalist.

Fortunately for Hasan, a friend noticed he had been taken away and mobilized a campaign on social media. Twenty or so students created a ruckus outside the campus house Hasan was taken to. After an hour or so, the group whom Hasan said he believes were Rangers released him—frightened and bruised, but not seriously injured.

The Rangers did not respond to a request for comment submitted by CPJ via their website.

“Fawad was picked up obviously for speaking against the deep state,” said Mubashir Zaidi, who anchors the talk show “Zara Hut Kay” (A Little Different) on Dawn TV—part of the same media group that owns Dawn—and who helped mobilize help for Hasan. Zaidi said he advises younger journalists to be more careful about what they write or say. It’s advice that Hasan says he has taken to heart, at least for the time being.

“A lot of people offered that I move to another country, you know, to save my life,” said Hasan, who currently works for the online magazine Cutacut. “I want to stay in Pakistan … This constant fear that if you say this, if you write this, then you will get into trouble, this has to go.”

“I had just told them that if you find something disturbing from my side, just let me know. Just call me up. Don’t pick me up,” Hasan said. “I don’t want to get disappeared like this. If you think that these articles are anti-state, then let’s talk it out.” But, he admits, “If they want to pick up the guy they will do so. There is no stopping them.”

Hasan said an hour in the hands of the Rangers was more than he could take, and he worries about the Pakistan Protection Ordinance law, which allows authorities to detain a suspect without charge for up to 90 days.

Authorities use the law and other counter-terrorism measures to silence critics, asHafiz Husnain Raza, who was jailed for nearly two years, found out.

Authorities detained Hafiz Husnain Raza, pictured center in garland, for nearly two years before dropping all charges. The reporter covered land disputes between farmers and the military. (Hassan Raza)

Raza’s case had less to do with the expanding narrative of the military, than its material interests—specifically land. Since at least 1997, farmers in the Okara area of Punjab province have clashed with the military over land the military wants to reclaim. “There were many casualties,” said Farooq Bajwa, Raza’s lawyer in Lahore. “Several tenant farmers were killed, and [other farmers] still didn’t vacate the land. They had one demand: either give us ownership rights or let us stay here as tenants and pay you shares of our crop.”

Since 2010, Raza has covered the protests for Pakistan's leading conservative-leaning Urdu-language newspaper Nawa-i-Waqt. He took over the job from his late father, a reporter who also spent time in jail for his work.

On April 25, 2016, police arrested Raza and held him incommunicado for 90 days under the Protection Ordinance. During that time, he was mistreated and lost weight, Bajwa said. Getting bail proved elusive. “On at least six occasions, Hafiz Husnain was granted bail and allowed to leave jail if he submitted a surety bond, but each time he had the chance to be released from jail, a new charge was brought against him,” said Bajwa. In total, Raza faced 11 terrorism charges, and six related to weapons.

Raza’s paper tried to intervene but his case faced near total blackout of coverage by other media. “The actions against him by local authorities were a deterrent to other journalists, and so far few journalists have raised their voices for him to be released from prison or for the cases against him to be closed,” said Bajwa, confirming what several journalists told CPJ privately in Lahore: they were afraid because the military was involved.

Bajwa said he received anonymous phone calls offering him money to drop the case. Raza’s family also suffered. “The house was raided, [police] broke the locks and entered our house,” said Raza’s mother, Azhara Parveen. “Inside, they found nothing. But the charges they made against Hafiz—that he had grenades, etc.—they didn’t leave out anything [even though] the whole neighborhood knew that nothing was found in the house.”

Raza’s brother, Hassan, added, “We would get threatening calls, harassment over the phone, we’d be harassed on the street. We didn’t know how we could go on.” Hassan said he lost his job, and another brother faced spurious legal charges connected to a store he ran.

In March, a court dismissed all terrorism charges against Raza, and granted the journalist bail on remaining charges under the Illicit Arms Act. Bajwa said that by June the remaining charges were cleared, and Raza was able to return to work.

Direct pressure from military authorities is the main issue journalists raised, but they said they also fear blasphemy accusations. The charge is punishable by death, fine, or imprisonment in Pakistan. But for many, deadly mob violence following a public accusation is more frightening than a conviction. Since 1995, no one convicted of blasphemy has been executed, but at least 65 murders have resulted from false accusations, according to a 2017 report from the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, an independent nonprofit.

Pakistan’s reaction to blasphemy is tied to the country’s identity as an Islamic republic—which was used to try to bring unity after partition—and legislation introduced under Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq, who ruled from 1978 until his death in a plane crash in 1988.

Being accused of, or even discussing blasphemy can be deadly. In April last year, a mob killed a 23-year-old student named Mashal Khan after a debate on religion. “When [Khan] was killed, we could not say openly that he was innocent,” said Farzana Ali, Peshawar bureau chief for Aaj TV, who covered the story. Co-workers and security personnel at the university where he was attacked warned her that defending the victim would create security risks. In February, a court in Peshawar convicted 31 people in the murder, one of whom was sentenced to death.

Among the press, Geo News executives said the station and staff have come under verbal attack for blasphemy. Noorani showed CPJ photos of posters in Chiniot and other cities in Punjab that accused him of blasphemy. The Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA) banned TV commentator Amir Liaquat from hosting or appearing on any program after he repeatedly accused activists and journalists of blasphemy on his show, “Aisay Nahi Chalay Ga” on the BOL network, according to news reports. And, in June last year, a car struck Express Tribune journalist Rana Tanveer in what the journalist said he believes was an attempt to kill him over his coverage of religious minorities. Prior to the attack, threatening messages were daubed on Tanveer’s Lahore home.

With religion, “even discussing politics or serious conflicts can be a red line,” said Dawn editor Zaffar Abbas. “In many of the cases, it’s discussion on laws that have been introduced in this country in the name of religion. Like the blasphemy law, like the Hudood Ordinances [introducing elements of Sharia in 1977], that can be a red line which, if crossed, can bring trouble.” Several editors at major publications said they ask to see all stories related to religion before publication for fear of inadvertently provoking an extreme reaction—an editorial procedure that inevitably induces caution and self-censorship among reporters.

Reporter Taha Siddiqui, center, speaks at a January 2018 press conference about an attempted kidnapping that he believes is connected to his reporting on Pakistan’s military. (AP/Anjum Naveed)

Also hanging over journalists is a fear of abduction. At an Islamabad press conference in January journalist Taha Siddiqui said he barely escaped an attempted abduction. In January the previous year, four activists and bloggerswere abducted from Karachi and Lahore, and later released. One of them, Waqass Goraya, told the BBC that he was punched, slapped and forced into stress positions while held by an organization with links to the military. The military denied responsibility.

Pakistan’s government-appointed Commission of Inquiry on Enforced Disappearances, founded in 2011, has received 4,608 cases, according to Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, with many from the eastern Pakistan provinces of Baluchistan or Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. While few of these directly involve journalists, editors and reporters said they are acutely aware of the cases and fear they could be next.

Pakistan’s press has self-help measures to help deal with these threats. Otherwise fiercely competitive editors in 2015 formed Editors for Safety, essentially a WhatsApp group used to mobilize and coordinate publicity and public pressure when a journalist is abducted or attacked. Safety Hubs, organized by Freedom Network, offers assistance around the country to journalists in trouble. Other organizations, including the Pakistan Press Foundation, provide safety training.

Covering regions experiencing rebellion or ethnic division is also challenging. Tensions in these areas go back to partition in 1947 and ethnic and religious unity remains elusive, as the large and politically dominant population of Punjabis in the east exerts a sometimes uneasy control over other regions.

As part of the 2014 crackdown on militancy, the army became increasingly active in areas including Baluchistan, home of a separatist movement, and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, with its concentration of ethnic Pashtuns. While the result has been a reduction in militant violence, journalists found themselves caught in the middle.

“Journalists can’t afford to report an independent story,” said a senior journalist who has been based for years in Baluchistan’s provincial capital, Quetta, and who asked to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation by his employer or Pakistan’s intelligence services. The journalist was so spooked that he refused to meet in public.

Baluchistan has long been dangerous for journalists trying to report on the province’s long-running independence insurgency and military’s determination to stamp it out—with both sides willing to act against the press.

A 2011 ruling by the Baluchistan High Court banned coverage of Baluch separatists or nationalist groups, stating that “If the electronic media and the press publish propaganda reports out of fear and propagate the views of banned organizations they are not acting as good and responsible journalists, but as mouthpieces for malicious and vile propaganda.” The court ordered the government to enforce the ruling, which could lead to a six-month jail sentence.

The ruling proved impossible to follow for many journalists, as militant groups threatened them with violence to ensure their statements and actions were reported. “Better we are jailed for six months than to be killed by one group or another,” former president of the Quetta Press Club, Shahzada Zulfiqar, told Freedom Network.

At least 11 cases have been registered against journalists for violating the ban on coverage, according to a November 2017 Freedom Network report.

In October 2017, militants announced a ban on the distribution of newspapers in Baluchistan. They threw a hand grenade at a news distribution office in Turbat, leaving eight injured. Gunmen opened fire on a newspaper delivery vehicle in Awaran, and then burned the newspapers, according to a report in Dawn. The attacks halted newspaper distribution. The militants eventually relented, according to the Quetta correspondent, because they were losing support among businesses affected by the ban.

Farzana Ali, Peshawar bureau chief for Aaj TV, says independent journalism is a challenge in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. (CPJ)

The situation is not much better in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and its provincial capital, Peshawar, about 350 miles northeast of Quetta. “The situation now is that there is no access to information,” said Ali, the Aaj TV bureau chief. “A press release or some sort of handout comes in, we publish it, we put it on air. We discuss it and analyze it. But the alternative views, the real pictures, that come up on social media, for example, we can’t cover.”

Ali faces an additional set of challenges as a female journalist covering a conflict zone in a religiously conservative part of Pakistan. “There’s this Pashtun mentality that’s already been an obstacle for us: you can go here, you can’t go there, you can do this, can’t do that,” she said.

Ali said that when traveling to cover a rally by the conservative Difa-e-Pakistan, young participants blocked the road and smashed a water bottle on the windshield of her vehicle. When her male colleagues asked what the problem was, they were told, “Send this woman home. Islam doesn’t allow women to roam around like this on the streets.” Ali said that when her colleagues responded that she was a journalist, the group said they didn’t care.

“I was the first woman bureau chief [of a TV channel] in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and the second in Pakistan,” Ali said. “In this male-dominated society of ours, women are stereotyped as being too emotional, unintelligent, unable to understand things.” She added, “There is a glass ceiling over us women, especially in this area. If you break through that, come out, and try to do something new, you face dangers. both socially and from your environment, whether from non-state organs or state organs, from political groups, from religious groups.”

Because of the dangers and restrictions in the region, correspondents tend to stay in the cities and report from military or government press releases. “We cannot cover any story except what the military wishes,” the Quetta-based correspondent said.

The correspondent added that the press struggled with how to cover an incident in January when a roadside bomb killed six soldiers. A militant group claimed responsibility but, the correspondent said, most news outlets simply ran the military’s version that described it as a road accident.

Dawn editor Abbas said, “In many parts of Pakistan, both sides have managed to create an atmosphere of fear that is preventing free thinking and honest and objective reporting … That atmosphere of fear has increased over a period of time, and when reports come about abduction or attempted abduction of a free-thinking journalist in Islamabad or Karachi or elsewhere, it solidifies this whole notion that journalists remain under threat.”

Size and market power are also no protection from military pressure to shape news coverage.

By all accounts Geo News had won the ratings battles, burying the competition with an average 7 million cable and satellite viewers—more than four times that of its nearest competitor, according to a 2013 report by the national TV ratings service, Gallup. Its popular 24-hour news programming was sent around the country on cable channels, along with increasingly popular and profitable entertainment and sports channels.



But in April, local cable distributors stopped transmitting Geo’s programming—not just the news, but the entertainment and sports channels as well—without warning.

In a WhatsApp conversation, Azhar Abbas, Geo News managing director, said roughly 80 percent of households were cut off. Even an order from PEMRA, the broadcast regulator, requiring cable companies to restore transmission or face a suspension of their licenses went ignored. Geo was facing an imminent financial crisis. Azhar Abbas said in late May that the situation eased, but he expected the station to remain under pressure in the run-up to the election.

As with Noorani’s case, it’s hard to document who made the order and for what reason.

Geo News’s clashes with authorities started well before April 2018 and exemplify the divide between some media houses and the military, divisions among media groups that once spoke in a single voice, the growing use of indirect tactics to impose censorship, and the rise of self-censorship.

These tensions came to the fore in the aftermath of the attack on Mir in April 2014, when the journalist’s brother blamed the ISI on air. The incident sowed the seeds of distrust and conflict between the press and the military and widening divisions among media groups.

Geo News anchor Hamid Mir leaves the Supreme Court in Islamabad in May 2014, after a hearing on the attempted assassination against him. Journalists point to the attack as a pivotal moment for the country’s media. (AP/Anjum Naveed)

“When Hamid Mir was attacked in Karachi … we saw the division among the media owners in public for the first time,” said Khattak. “Those media houses were split among themselves and they were accusing and blaming each other for being ‘anti-Pakistan,’ ‘Indian agent,’ ‘Jewish lobby,’ ‘American.’ All these labels we heard in public. I think that really hurt press freedom directly. That hurt the unity among the journalists, also. The journalist representative body at the federal level, which is called the Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists, was split into more than two groups.”

In spite of divisions, the Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists came together in July 2018 to protest what it called “pre-censorship” of the media, including blocks on the distribution of Dawn.

As the Mir attack divided the journalists, owners too lost a single voice. “They are split,” said Khattak. “Some are pro-government. Some are pro-establishment. Some are anti-government. Some are anti-establishment, whatever you call them. But we, as a media freedom campaigner and defender, think that is a serious blow to media freedom in Pakistan. It’s extremely difficult to bring all these media owners to a single table around a single point agenda that is the journalist protection or media freedom.”

Ali, of the Pakistan Press Foundation, added, “The media itself has become polarized and does not speak with one voice on issues related to freedom. If you talk to print journalists, they will say electronic television journalists are irresponsible. If you talk to electronic media, they will say online media is really irresponsible. If you talk to one media house they will say the other media house is irresponsible. So, the level of polarization has increased to really unacceptable levels, and everybody’s confused. Is press freedom part of the solution, or is it actually part of the problem?”

Sadaf Khan, co-founder of Media Matters for Democracy, the media research and advocacy group, said, “We see a dip in credibility, there is a trust deficit … So there is a feeling with the media consumers community that the media … cannot be trusted with handling its job with responsibility. They don’t have any public support.”

Meanwhile, “the establishment” has an effective way to put pressure on broadcast media: just tell local TV cable operators to block transmission. “In some areas they completely shut you down,” said Geo TV’s Azhar Abbas. “And other areas they put the channel to a high number, or they keep switching the [channel] numbers.” Changing the channel number makes it hard for viewers to find the station. Abbas said he’s lost track of how many times it’s happened since 2014, when the blockages started. “In the past year, a couple of months back, we negotiated with the military and they started opening up a little,” he said, without providing specifics of the negotiations.

PEMRA did not respond to CPJ’s email request for comment.

A number of editors at newspapers and broadcast media also described a step-up in phone calls from the military advising or complaining about coverage, although they often declined to talk about it openly. The calls are not necessarily threatening. But they all agreed: they were hard to ignore. “We are not airing anything that is against the military as such,” said Azhar Abbas. “It’s the whole narrative that matters. If it’s the sit-in in Islamabad, if we are more critical of one party, they will raise an eyebrow. If we air the speeches of [disqualified former prime minister] Nawaz Sharif too much they will ask why. If we air something that India has offered, they will say that we are giving the Indian point of view.”

Geo TV President Imran Aslam said, “This must be the only case when a TV station is banned because it’s seen as being pro-government.” While Geo, and the Jang media group that owns it, do not see themselves as biased toward the PML-N or former prime minister, Sharif, they gave ample coverage to the government, which was unpopular with the military because of Sharif’s efforts to bring the military under civilian control.

In April, columnists at some newspapers—including Mosharraf Zaidi and Babar Sattar at The News—began complaining on Twitter that their publications had rejected their writing on sensitive topics for the first time, and without explanation. Both these writers put their columns on Twitter.

The News did not respond to CPJ’s email request for comment.

In May, Twitter was alive with reporters complaining about a news blackout of demonstrations in Peshawar, Lahore, and Karachi aimed at securing rights for Pashtuns. Journalists say pressure from the military effectively led to a ban on coverage. “In the newsroom, I could feel developing a self-censorship mode among my senior editors,” said Azhar Abbas. “Anything that’s critical of the army or sensitive. We used to feel, ‘write whatever you want.’ Of course, get the facts right. Now, people are scared.”

A survey published on May 3 by Media Matters for Democracy found that 88 percent of the 156 journalists who responded said they had censored what they write or report. About 72 percent said the trend had increased over time. Seven in 10 journalists said that censoring what they wrote made them feel safer. Six in 10 said they were very likely to self-censor information about the security establishment or religion and around 83 percent said they would likely censor information about militancy and terrorism.

“I think the numbers [of killed journalists] are going down because the resistance from the media that used to come, let’s say five years or six years ago, had drastically gone down as well,” said Asad Baig, founder and executive director of Media Matters for Democracy. “And that is perhaps because of the very organized control mediums in place. People are very clear about what to say, and what not to say, what are those clearly drawn red lines that they cannot cross. And these are not just the journalists, but the media owners, editors and all the way up.”

In other words, Pakistani media consumers aren’t getting a full or accurate picture of critical issues facing the country. This is no accident. The military and other powerful institutions have established lines of control to stifle the press, by promoting people and issues considered favorable, and limiting the dissemination of content found objectionable.

 

[Path-Finder]

I remember when Russia was kicking out all of the crap like NGO's and anti-national garbage the west had installed in Russia.

As the sweeping began to stand the country on its feet reports of such nature especially relating to jurnos was bein published in print and broadcasting media. Social media wasn't that big then.

Same line was toed that freedom of speech is under threat because their favourite characters were being taken out .

Just look at Turkey shortly before the failed coup and after it!! Turkey has done the same spring cleaning.

It appears Pakistan has started operation clean up too. We hear their screams.

 

[Umair Nawaz]

@Solomon2 common man dont be scared! i wont bite as a staunch supporter of freedom and rights u must participate in draw Holocaust contest!

 

[Solomon2]

There is no civil way with people who are involved in anti-state activities. There is only one way to deal with such people and that is brute force. The time for nice friendly dialogue is over.

EDITORIAL
Handling threats to media
SEPTEMBER 13, 2018

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) this week released a special report on the state of media freedom in this country. The crux of which is summarised in the title: “Acts of Intimidation: In Pakistan, journalists’ fear and censorship grow even as fatal violence declines”.

As such, the findings do not throw up anything new for those working as part of the fourth estate. What it does provide, however, is a crucial and detailed overview for the new civilian set-up. All the while underscoring how a drop in the numbers of journalists killed in the line of duty is not, in reality, synonymous with a free media. Rather, it points to a double-edged sword.

Through extensive interviews with journalists in all the country’s major urban centres as well as Okara, the report traces the strangling of press freedom to two distinct events some four years ago. Firstly, in 2014, veteran journalist Hamid Mir suffered an assassination attempt. His brother would later publicly accuse the deep state of being behind the attack. Secondly, at the end of that year came the Tehreek-e-Taliban (TTP) targeting of the Army Public School (APS) in Peshawar. This led to anti-terror operations. And while this resulted in some reprieve from militants that have long viewed the fourth estate as a ‘legitimate’ soft target — those charged with neutralising this threat soon became seen as posing a similar risk to media freedom through a campaign of intimidation and worse. Such practices were ‘aided’ by the Pakistan Protection Ordinance (PPO); providing for 90-day detention without charge.

The question boils down to this: who determines what constitutes anti-state activity as well as consensus on who may be a recognised target of this. As things currently stand, unbiased factual reporting has seemingly been falsely positioned as jeopardising national security concerns. Consequently, editors and news directors are now wont to opt for self-censorship in a bid to keep both they and their staff as safe as possible. Of course, nowhere in the world is the media left entirely to its own devices. And even where reporters adhere to established guidelines this does not safeguard them against being thrown in jail on trumped up allegations; as has been witnessed in Egypt, Turkey and India in recent times. But there is something amiss in a country where covering labour practices, especially in foreign-owned companies, is treated as insurrection.

The new government has still not fully woken up to these perils. Instead, it focuses on asking the fourth estate to afford it a three-month grace period before critiquing its performance. Or else, it pursues the merging of the respective regulatory authorities for print and electronic media into a single body. Whereas its most urgent priority ought, undoubtedly, to be protecting journalists while ensuring that the media as free as possible. Not least because the additional fear of blasphemy allegations is never far off for those deemed to have overstepped the mark. And then there is the matter of news outlets coming under double fire. That is, from militants on the one hand who threaten violent retribution if their statements and bloody acts are not extensively covered. To the security apparatus, on the other, which then accuses the fourth estate of glorifying extremism. This holds particularly true in restive areas such as Balochistan; where a separatist movement is being waged against the state.

The new set-up must therefore place journalist security centre stage. For without this, any talk of instituting independent editorial policies becomes little more than white noise. *

Published in Daily Times, September 13th 2018.

 

[Reichsmarschall]

EDITORIAL
Handling threats to media
SEPTEMBER 13, 2018

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) this week released a special report on the state of media freedom in this country. The crux of which is summarised in the title: “Acts of Intimidation: In Pakistan, journalists’ fear and censorship grow even as fatal violence declines”.

As such, the findings do not throw up anything new for those working as part of the fourth estate. What it does provide, however, is a crucial and detailed overview for the new civilian set-up. All the while underscoring how a drop in the numbers of journalists killed in the line of duty is not, in reality, synonymous with a free media. Rather, it points to a double-edged sword.

Through extensive interviews with journalists in all the country’s major urban centres as well as Okara, the report traces the strangling of press freedom to two distinct events some four years ago. Firstly, in 2014, veteran journalist Hamid Mir suffered an assassination attempt. His brother would later publicly accuse the deep state of being behind the attack. Secondly, at the end of that year came the Tehreek-e-Taliban (TTP) targeting of the Army Public School (APS) in Peshawar. This led to anti-terror operations. And while this resulted in some reprieve from militants that have long viewed the fourth estate as a ‘legitimate’ soft target — those charged with neutralising this threat soon became seen as posing a similar risk to media freedom through a campaign of intimidation and worse. Such practices were ‘aided’ by the Pakistan Protection Ordinance (PPO); providing for 90-day detention without charge.

The question boils down to this: who determines what constitutes anti-state activity as well as consensus on who may be a recognised target of this. As things currently stand, unbiased factual reporting has seemingly been falsely positioned as jeopardising national security concerns. Consequently, editors and news directors are now wont to opt for self-censorship in a bid to keep both they and their staff as safe as possible. Of course, nowhere in the world is the media left entirely to its own devices. And even where reporters adhere to established guidelines this does not safeguard them against being thrown in jail on trumped up allegations; as has been witnessed in Egypt, Turkey and India in recent times. But there is something amiss in a country where covering labour practices, especially in foreign-owned companies, is treated as insurrection.

The new government has still not fully woken up to these perils. Instead, it focuses on asking the fourth estate to afford it a three-month grace period before critiquing its performance. Or else, it pursues the merging of the respective regulatory authorities for print and electronic media into a single body. Whereas its most urgent priority ought, undoubtedly, to be protecting journalists while ensuring that the media as free as possible. Not least because the additional fear of blasphemy allegations is never far off for those deemed to have overstepped the mark. And then there is the matter of news outlets coming under double fire. That is, from militants on the one hand who threaten violent retribution if their statements and bloody acts are not extensively covered. To the security apparatus, on the other, which then accuses the fourth estate of glorifying extremism. This holds particularly true in restive areas such as Balochistan; where a separatist movement is being waged against the state.

The new set-up must therefore place journalist security centre stage. For without this, any talk of instituting independent editorial policies becomes little more than white noise. *

Published in Daily Times, September 13th 2018.

dont you think you should better channel your energies for adressing issues in your own country?

US: Five journalists killed in shocking attack on press freedom

The killing of five journalists in their newsroom in Maryland, USA yesterday is a shocking attack on press freedom. The documented rise in attacks on journalists for carrying out their work represents a direct and severe threat to the right to freedom of expression, and the US government must ensure not only that the person responsible is brought to justice, but that it takes steps to create a safe and enabling environment for journalists across the country, including through its rhetoric.

On 28 June 2018, journalists and newspaper workers Wendi Winters, Rebecca Smith, Robert Hiaasen, Gerald Fischman and John McNamara were shot dead by a gunman who had previously filed a defamation lawsuit against their newspaper, The Capital Gazette, for its reporting on his conviction under harassment charges. The suit had been dismissed as the gunman and accuser, Jarrod Ramos, failed to show that any of the details reported were inaccurate.

Following the murders, police were posted to a number of major news outlets across the county. The murders come amid rising public hostility to journalists and the media, fuelled in part by the Trump administration’s long running verbal attacks on journalists and their reporting. In May 2018, ARTICLE 19 and a coalition of international freedom of expression organisations published a report following a press freedom mission to the US, which highlighted a number of concerning trends, including the increased abuse, harassment and threats of physical attacks against journalists. These violations have occurred in particular online, and are fuelled by divisive and disparaging rhetoric from the Trump administration against the media.

“This shocking attack is a worrying indicator of the threatening environment journalists in the US are increasingly facing,” said Thomas Hughes, Executive Director of ARTICLE 19. “We express our condolences to the family, friends and colleagues of those killed in this attack on the press. The government must see this as a wake up call, and urgently reverse its rhetoric on the media, and make sure the US’s free press is protected and able to carry out their important work in safety.”


its surprising white Supremacist and Islamophobic Jews like @Solomon2 (Goebbels) who are always riding High moral mule want press freedom for every country except their own

IDF MILITARY CENSOR BANNED NEARLY 300 ARTICLES LAST YEAR


The Military Censor works in an outdated mode, even if some secrets are legitimate, expert says.
BY ANNA AHRONHEIM

JULY 12, 2018 14:44

3 minute read.

• >
  Military censor denies Syrian missiles flew over central Israel last week
• >
  IDF censor questioned over blocking gov’t report on prisoner exchange

IDF computing school. (photo credit: IDF SPOKESMAN’S UNIT)



The Israeli military censor banned the publication of 271 articles in 2017 and partially or fully redacted another 2,087 news stories that had been submitted for review.


There were a total of 11,035 news articles submitted for review, a decrease from the previous year, in which 13,396 articles were reviewed by the Military Censor and 2,190 were partially redacted. A total of 247 articles were fully banned for publication in 2016.


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The figures were released by the Military Censor following a freedom of information request jointly filed by the Movement for Freedom of Information and the +972 Magazine.


In addition to the news articles, out of 83 books submitted to the military censor, 53 were partially redacted or edited, and only 31 were approved without any changes. The numbers marked an decrease from 2016, when out of 77 books submitted, 36 of them were redacted or completely banned from being published.


The censor derives its authority from laws passed before the state was even established, set by the British Mandate, in which any journalist working in Israeli newspapers and other media outlets must submit articles and all other items related to Israel’s security and foreign relations to the IDF Censor before they are published. More recently, this has included social media postings by journalists.


“The number of stories submitted and handled by the censor is considerably affected by the number of security related events in a given year, as well as the media landscape,” the Military Censor said in a statement.


“The Supreme Court ruled that the censor would prohibit publication only if, in his opinion, there is a near certainty that the publication would cause substantial harm to the security of the state and that is the grounds for the disqualification by which the censor operates,” the statement continued, adding that “intervention in publications is minimal in relation to the security discourse conducted in various media outlets.”


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Tehilla Shwartz Altshuler, head of the Media Reform Program at the Israel Democracy Institute told The Jerusalem Post that while there are “obviously” secrets that must be kept away from the public eye, the role of the Military Censor is outdated.


“The British legislation was never cancelled and if you look at it, if someone breaches the censor, a printing machine can be confiscated,” she said.


While the legislation governing the Military Censor may be outdated, the Military Censor has also been monitoring social media sites like Facebook and Twitter.


“At the beginning we thought that in the digital age the censor wouldn’t be able censor but we were wrong, they learned to use social media. We shouldn’t think that because of the social media age we can post everything,” Altshuler said.


Altshuler pointed to the 2017 incident where two Jordanians were shot and killed by an Israeli embassy security guard in Amman. While foreign press reported on the incident in real time, Israeli press were limited by the Military Censor to publishing - and posting on social media sites like Twitter - only after Israeli embassy staff had returned to Israel.


“Don’t underestimate [the Military Censor]. They are effective,” Altshuler said.


Altshuler told the Post that instead of the Military Censor, she recommended that an advisory committee under the Prime Minister’s Office be established for journalists and authors to approach if they have potentially sensitive material in their articles.


“There are secrets that must be kept, it’s a matter of life and death and we want to make sure secrets are kept well and away from the reach of the public, but the way it’s done in Israel is wider than any other democratic country,” she said.



Report: IDF Censorship of Israeli Press Averages One Redaction Every Four Hours
A recent report found that over the course of the past year, 271 articles were prohibited by Israel’s military censor and an additional 2,358 were partially or fully redacted.

EL AVIV – In the “only democracy” in the Middle East, military censors are working overtime to control the content of reporting and keep certain stories hidden from the public. According to a recent report by Israeli journalist Haggai Matar for online magazine +972, Israel’s military censor has notably increased the percentage of articles it partially or fully redacted in the Israeli press over the past year, a trend unlikely to decline as Israel prepares for potential war with Gaza, Lebanon and Syria.

The report, which used government figures obtained via freedom of information request, found that over the course of the past year 271 articles were prohibited by the military censor and an additional 2,358 were partially or fully redacted. On average, Israel’s military censor made a redaction in a story once every four hours and completely censored a story an average of five times a week.

Despite promoting its media environment as “lively, pluralistic and generally respectful of press freedom,” the censorship of Israeli press – long a reality in the country – has been steadily growing worse.




Thanks to a permanent state of emergency in effect since Israel’s founding in 1948, newspapers and other traditional news outlets in Israel have long been required to submit all articles which relate to national security and/or foreign relations to the censor of the Israel Defense Forces for review prior to publication. As +972 noted, “Israel is the only [democracy] where journalists and publications are legally required to submit their reporting for review prior to publication, and the only one where censorship can be criminally enforced.” The Israel Defense Forces also have the authority to censor books and other print publications.

In recent years, the censor has sought to bring online publications under its control but has not been entirely successful in doing so. The proliferation of online news in Israel, and internationally, may be in part responsible for another surprising finding of the report, which noted that the number of articles submitted to the censor for review dropped to a seven-year-low in 2017.

The decline in submitted articles is likely due in part to the close relationship between the IDF and Israeli publishers. Indeed, Chief IDF Censor Brig. Gen. Ariela Ben Avraham noted that the military rarely pursues violations of the censorship laws as news publishers in Israel “[show] responsibility when addressing matters of national security.” Such an atmosphere likely leads to self-censorship as publishers and journalists are less likely to write stories that they know will be outright rejected by the military censor.

An uptick in Israeli press censorship is common preceding and during times of war. Instances of censorship jumped noticeably during Israel’s 2014 war against the Gaza strip. Given the high probability of another Israel-Gaza war later this year and Israel’s violent response to Palestinian unrest as it moves to formally annex the West Bank, censorship in the name of Israel’s ‘national security’ is likely to increase even more over the course of 2018.

Top Photo | Israeli troops arrest Associated Press photographer Nasser Shiyoukhi while he was covering a protest in Palestinian West Bank town of Yatta. AP Photo

Whitney Webb is a staff writer for MintPress News and a contributor to Ben Swann’s Truth in Media. Her work has appeared on Global Research, the Ron Paul Institute and 21st Century Wire, among others. She has also made radio and TV appearances on RT and Sputnik. She currently lives with her family in southern Chile.
Censorship is alive and well in Israel


When thinking of censorship in the Middle East, many people, especially Americans, tend to think that most, if not all, Arab countries impose some form of censorship on foreign and domestic media. Many countries in the region do impose restrictions on the press but typically those affect domestic media.

Where foreign correspondents are concerned, the rules, when broken, are rarely enforced. Why? Because arresting foreign journalists is really bad for business.

Interestingly, the country the United States likes to identify as “the only democratic country in the Middle East region,” is the one with some of the strictest rules. That country is Israel. Despite its “democratic” labels, Israel’s military censors have been the busiest in the region.

The Media Reform Programme at the Israel Democracy Institute told the Jerusalem Post that, while there are “obviously secrets that must be kept away from the public eye, the role of the military censor is outdated.”

However, the censor is still busy. The Jerusalem Post stated the Israeli military censor banned the publication of 271 articles in 2017 and partially or fully redacted another 2,087 news stories.

There were 11,035 news articles submitted for review, a decrease from the previous year in which 13,396 articles were reviewed by the military censor, and 2,190 were partially redacted,” the Post said. A total of 247 articles were fully banned for publication in 2016.

Journalists in Israel are subject to censorship laws but that does not mean they must submit every article or have the military censor approve which pictures can be published.

Foreign correspondents in Israel use their discretion as to what can be sent out of the country. They know what the sensitive issues are likely to be. At the top of the list are the Jewish state’s nuclear programme and information that is considered threatening to the country’s national security.

Israel’s nuclear programme is widely known about, although Israel has never acknowledged that it has a nuclear programme and Israeli leaders simply refuse to answer anything relating to this sensitive issue.

The information provided in the Post’s report was released by the military censor following a freedom of information request jointly filed by the Movement for Freedom of Information and the +972 magazine.

In addition to the news articles, of 83 books submitted to the Israeli military censor in 2017, 53 were partially redacted or edited. The numbers marked an increase from 2016, when, out of 77 books submitted, 36 were redacted or banned from being published.

The rules driving the military censor come from laws enacted before the state of Israel was founded. The laws come from the time of the British Mandate.

The laws stipulate that any journalist working for Israeli media outlets must submit articles and all other items related to Israel’s security and foreign relations to the Israeli Military Censor before publication. More recently, this has included social media postings by journalists.

“The number of stories submitted and handled by the censor is considerably affected by the number of security-related events in a given year, as well as the media landscape,” the military censor said in a statement.

“The Supreme Court ruled that the censor would prohibit publication only if, in his opinion, there is a near certainty that the publication would cause substantial harm to the security of the state and that is the grounds for the disqualification by which the censor operates,” the statement continued, adding that “intervention in publications is minimal in relation to the security discourse conducted in various media outlets.”

The Democracy Centre told the Jerusalem Post that, instead of the military censor, it recommended that an advisory committee under the Prime Minister’s Office be established for journalists and authors to approach if they have potentially sensitive material in their articles.

On occasions when journalists believed the story absolutely needed to be told, they had -- and still have -- the option of travelling to Cyprus -- only a 30-minute plane ride away -- and filing from there. The worst that would happen is the journalist may get a reprimand upon return to Israel.


Are Palestinian Journalists Being Censored by Murder?
COMMENTS

Mourners carry the body of Palestinian journalist Ahmed Abu Hussein at his funeral in the Jebaliya refugee camp, Gaza Strip. Israeli troops shot him while he was covering a border protest. (Adel Hana / AP)


On April 25, Ahmad Abu Hussein became the second Palestinian journalist Israeli snipers shot to death while covering the Great March of Return demonstrations, a series of weekly, massive Palestinian demonstrations demanding the right to return to their lands. Abu Hussein was 24 years old. Just days before, Israeli live ammunition killed 30-year-old Yasser Mourtaja. Like Abu Hussein, he was wearing a large, bright “Press” jacket that made clear he was a reporter.

The organization Reporters Sans Frontieres asserts that the Israeli Occupying Forces’ targeting of journalists is deliberate and systemic. This would be in direct violation of United Nations Security Council Resolution 2222 (2015), which states: “impunity for crimes committed against journalists, media professionals and associated personnel in armed conflict remains a significant challenge to their protection and that ensuring accountability for crimes committed against them is a key element in preventing future attacks.”

Any proper inquiry into the shooting should take into account that the demonstrations are not a matter of “armed conflict.” The protests have been largely nonviolent, even celebratory. But Israel is determined to take brutal, punitive measures toward anyone who even approaches the border fence, which marks off its illegally occupied territory. An Israeli investigation into a December 2017 shooting reveals that Israeli soldiers are ordered to shoot anyone who is approaching the border fence, regardless of whether or not they are armed. This military posture has led to hundreds of unarmed Palestinians being hit with live ammunition, including several children.

According to Diana Buttu, a political analyst and Palestinian citizen of Israel, Israel’s targeting of journalists is not new and not accidental:

For years the Israeli censorship office, as it is called, has used tactics to try to punish journalists covering Israel’s occupation of Palestine. For example, Israel threatened to close down the BBC for its airing of a documentary on Israel’s nuclear weapons. Israel is now threatening to close down the offices of Al Jazeera for doing their job: reporting critically on Israel’s denial of freedom. The targeting of Palestinian journalists in Gaza is an extension of this: in the eyes of Israel’s military establishment there ‘are no innocents in Gaza’ including journalists.

One might even say, “especially journalists,” or indeed, anyone documenting the military’s actions. The Middle East Monitor notes a new law that punishes anyone who documents army personnel in action: “The draft law calls for anyone who films soldiers during their military service to be handed a -year [sic] jail term which would increase to ten years if the content is classified as ‘detrimental to Israeli security.’ The bill also prohibits the publication of video recordings on social media or disseminating them to the media.”

Human rights activist and law professor Noura Erakat sums up the situation thus: “It is both an effort to ensure that the Palestinian story is not told to the world and to tell Palestinians themselves that no one is safe.”

To understand the significance of Israel’s attacks on journalists, it is crucial to understand how their professional lives are inextricable from their private lives under Israeli occupation. Doing journalism under these material, political and military conditions is nearly impossible, in any conventional sense. To try to get the story of what doing journalism is like, I contacted Issam Adwan, a freelance journalist in Gaza. He agreed to listen to my questions, pose them to a few of his colleagues and then translate the interviews. As one begins to learn more about the situation of Palestinian journalists, one understands the particular difficulties of working under not only Israeli censorship and repression, but also under the complexities of the Palestinian political world.

It is not only the Israeli state that is targeting journalists—the Palestinian Authority does so as well. The Committee to Protect Journalists reports the case of Hazem Naser, who was arrested by Palestinian Authority security forces in the middle of the night at his house. Anas Dahode, a 26-year-old journalist with Al-Aqsa TV, vividly describes the result of these pressures. He told Truthdig:

Being a journalist in Gaza only means death. Either you die trying to cover the massacres of Israeli Occupation forces as what happened to my friends like Yasser Mourtaja and others before him who were killed with cold-blood despite showing their identity as press personnel, or you die of watching others dying, it’s deadly any way. On one hand you face the political disputes between Hamas and Fatah which are derived from different ideologies and affect our media focus and the future or our jobs. On the other hand, the Israeli occupation that violates human rights almost every single day here in Gaza.

Mohammed Shaheen, 24, from the Voice of Palestine spoke about both the material and psychological challenges of doing his work:

We live in an open-air prison, we have few resources to live daily lives. In terms of my job as journalist, the Israeli authorities occasionally ban cameras, photographic materials, the use of safety gear that we need to do our jobs.

In normal cases, working as journalist omits the normalcy of your life. You should be always ready to work on breaking news to be a successful journalist. Imagine trying to do all this hard work when we are living in Gaza, a place we have martyrs and injuries almost every day. We have drones 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. You live the war—feeling every single moment of your life, not only because you fear to die in any moment or losing someone you always loved but also that you can wake up at dawn for a call from your agency to start working on some cases that related to Israeli massacres.

Shaheen added a striking, terrible afterword:

It is unfortunate that world community turned a blind eye and deaf ears to the Israeli massacres on Gaza. We have had three deadly wars, with Israel vastly armed against a people with few resources, military and otherwise. Thousands are killed and injured when all they wanted was to return their homes and villages, where their grandparents expelled from. We have been calling for the world community for 70 years—even when they know the truth, do you think it care? Israel always has the support of U.S., which will use the veto in any Palestinian-related voting. This is futile.

Despite this sense of futility, he and others still try to carry on their work. It is our responsibility to read and listen and watch the news that is brought to us at such a high cost.




ISRAELI ARTISTS FACE GROWING CENSORSHIP THREAT

By Duncan Pike

A series of disputes over state funding for the arts is exposing the fault lines in a “cultural war” between supporters of Israel’s new conservative government and the country’s largely left-leaning artists, and raising concerns for the state of free expression in Israel.

In an August 9 letter, the Israeli Attorney-General’s Office rebuked Culture and Sport Minister Miri Regev for violating freedom of expression guarantees after she froze funding to Al-Midan Theater in Haifa. The theatre had been a subject of dispute since June, when Education Minister Naftali Bennett withdrew the play A Parallel Time, then being staged at Al-Midan, from those approved for study by high-school students. The play tells the story of six prisoners in Israeli jails, including a militant imprisoned for the torture and killing of an Israeli soldier in 1984.

“The citizens of Israel will not fund plays that show tolerance toward the murderers of [Israeli] soldiers,” Bennett said in a statement at the time.

Regev, a member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing Likud Party, has made a number of uncompromising moves towards the artistic community in Israel. Earlier in June, Regev threatened to cut off support for Elmina Theatre after Israeli-Arab actor Norman Issa refused to perform with his troupe at a settlement in the Jordan Valley.

“If Norman does not withdraw his decision I intend to reconsider the ministry’s support for the Elmina Theater which he manages,” she said, according to The Jerusalem Post.

After meeting with representatives from cultural institutions, Regev announced she would re-examine the criteria for state funding of the arts, saying, “The government doesn’t have to support culture; I can decide where the money goes, the artists will not dictate to me.” Issa’s troupe in due course gave in to her demands. More than 2,000 Israeli artists subsequently signed a petition denouncing the actions taken by the government, and threatening to go on strike.

The leader of the social-democratic Meretz party, Zehava Gal-On, accused Regev of “seeking to silence artists, to limit art and to dictate policy to political subordinates. She does not have any understanding of democracy or freedom of expression.”

The dispute continued into July, as Regev threatened to cut off all funding to the Jerusalem Film Festival unless a documentary, Beyond the Fear, was taken off the program. The film follows the life of Igal Amir, who assassinated Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in 1995 over Rabin’s role in the Oslo Peace Process. The film, which has already been shown in several international festivals—including this year’s Hot Docs in Toronto—was kept in competition but removed from the main program.

The film’s selection had angered Israelis from across the political spectrum, including former President Shimon Peres, but the acquiescence of the festival to government pressure upset many in the Israeli film community, who worried about a precedent being set for political interference in artistic decisions.

Director and producer Shlomi Elkabetz withdrew from the competition jury in protest, tellingScreenDaily “t was about not agreeing and playing along as if nothing had happened… Something has been broken in these last two weeks.”

Elkabetz is part of a growing number of Israelis worried about the gathering threat to artistic freedom in the country. An August 5 editorial in Haaretz, the left-liberal paper of record in Israel, warned of a “cultural war of gagging and censorship that has been declared against Israeli artists.”

An op-ed by Israeli journalist Ben-Dror Yemini pushed back against this rationale, arguing that it “confuse freedom of expression with state funding. Oddly enough, those who use artistic freedom to harm the state think that the state has to fund them for some reason. When the state refuses, they start screaming about ‘a violation of the freedom of expression.’ Who violated? Where exactly is the violation? No one has silenced them.”

Yemini is of course right in one respect: the state is under no obligation to fund artists, and to withdraw funding is not a violation of legal rights to free speech. Yet it is incorrect to say that “no one has silenced them.” Regev’s threats to the Jerusalem Film Festival were made with the explicit purpose of silencing the filmmakers responsible for Beyond the Fear.

The use of official administrative actions short of outright bans to influence media or artistic output is known as indirect, or “soft,” censorship. A 2014 report by the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers (WAN-IFRA) described soft censorship as an “increasingly pervasive and alarmingly effective means of media manipulation and control around the world.” One of the primary means by which this is achieved is through the “allocation or withholding of state media spending (subsidies, advertising, and other media contracts or assistance), or selective application of licensing, permits or regulations, to shape the broad media landscape” and the report noted that it is “especially devastating in times of economic instability.”

WAN-IFRA called for “the establishment of an independent body to administer and monitor all state funding to media” as a means to guard against soft censorship. According to the Attorney General’s office, this sort of legal protection already exists, as it noted in its letter to Regev: “under existing law, state funding to public institutions cannot be made contingent on the content of the creations displayed in these institutions.”

Even with these protections, cultural institutions that depend on state funding could easily see the hardships that have befallen the Jerusalem Film Festival and Al-Midan Theater and decide that financial survival depends upon them overlooking the next play or film that might rankle those who write the cheques. This sort of self-censorship and artistic chill is corrosive to the ideal of an independent media, a critical press and a vibrant cultural landscape.

The concerns of Israel’s artistic community go beyond arguments over the politicization of state funding to the arts. Another documentary, Shivering in Gaza, about post-traumatic stress disorder among Palestinian health workers in the aftermath of the summer 2014 war with Israel, was banned by municipal governments in the towns of Sderot and Beersheba following protests by right-wing activists.

Minister Regev, a former spokesperson for the Israel Defense Forces, has remained defiant in the face of outcry from Israel’s artistic community. In a speech to the Knesset, she pushed back against suggestions that her actions harmed freedom of expression in the country, insisting on the distinction between banning an artistic enterprise and not funding it. “Whoever wants to defame Israel can do it alone. We won’t block it, but we won’t fund it.” she said.

“What is the shouting about? That we expressed a clear stance, that the government of Israel will not use its cultural budget for plays or institutions or artists who boycott Israel? Is there something immoral about that, or does that harm freedom of expression?” Regev asked.

The Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) has criticized the statements and actions of Ministers Bennett and Regev, saying that they “foment a dangerous atmosphere that will deter artists from producing critical creations that do not align with the establishment view. It is the very ministers who are supposed to sanctify free expression and creation that are in fact sending forth a diametrically opposed message.”

“Though artists may stand at the forefront of this attack,” said Dan Yakir, Chief Counsel of the ACRI, “the threat is to Israeli democracy as a whole.”

 

[Solomon2]

dont you think you should better channel your energies for adressing issues in your own country?

Whether I am or not, what contribution are you trying to make in this thread?

 

[Reichsmarschall]

Whether I am or not, what contribution are you trying to make in this thread?

i am calling out your hypocrisy and propaganda

 

[Rashid Mahmood]

All of the journos named in this article are linked to a specific group who are for sale.
Mir took 6 bullets and we can see his picture in the wheel chair.

That Taha character escaped from highly trained 10-12 special ops agents who tried to kidnap him, and he escaped and we can see his picture. That poor guy cant even walk straight even when is isn't drunk.

This propaganda war will continue.

 

[Verve]

The near-fatal attack

The near-fatal FAKE attack!

 

[Solomon2]

i am calling out your hypocrisy and propaganda

Dude, perhaps no one on this forum provides me with better "propaganda" material than you.

Journalist just collects, writes , distributes , or current information to the public. It may be right or wrong but We should not act like dictator. If you don't like particular information it doesn't mean we should attack them . Try to win debate through Pen, talk instead of gun and stick.

So what do you think of Peaceful Civilian's opinion, Reichsmarschall? I think it has great merit. Therefore Pakistan's security forces should devote special attention to protecting journalists by energetically prosecuting those who threaten and attack them.

 

[Indus Pakistan]

Whether I am or not, what contribution are you trying to make in this thread?

The fact that Cyril Almedia is still frothing at the mouth in his weekly column on Dawn is confirmation that there is nominal threat from the state against journos in Pakistan. No journalist in US media could be so critical of Pentagon and US government but still be on mainstream channels for long. Fox would sack him on the spot. And such journalist would be free to write for some village rag in New Mexico desert.

 

[Solomon2]

The fact that Cyril Almedia is still frothing at the mouth in his weekly column on Dawn is confirmation that there is nominal threat from the state against journos in Pakistan.

Not really. Look at how his writing has changed.

No journalist in US media could be so critical of Pentagon and US government but still be on mainstream channels for long. Fox would sack him on the spot.

Fox? NBC, CBS, ABC, and the Washington Post and NY Times dominate by far and on these you can certainly criticize the Pentagon and USG all you like. I imagine these are eager to higher Fox cast-outs as well - and at higher salaries than before.

And such journalist would be free to write for some village rag in New Mexico desert.

Some of our lesser-known local newspapers are underrated, imo. I will consider posting more articles from some of these if I find their D.C. and foreign coverage interesting.