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Govt unmoved as journalists face more threats Backgrounder
ISLAMABAD: As Pakistan retains the unenviable title of the most dangerous country for practicing journalists for the second consecutive year, 2012 is not promising either with journalists feeling far more threatened.
This whole drama continues unchecked due to the alleged complicity of the government as in none of the cases the investigation was completed, let alone prosecution of anyone, thus encouraging the attackers to keep on hounding and harassing even killing the journalists.
How riskier has become the profession of journalism is evident from the fact that six journalists, two senior and famous, have recorded threats to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), a New York based organization working for the safety of media persons, within a month.
Although the cases Hamid Mir and Najam Sethi have been publicized in Pakistan, the troubles facing other journalists have gone unnoticed here.
Ghulamuddin recently wrote an email to the CPJ questioning the writ of Pakistan state that has failed to provide him protection in face of threats that forced him into hiding after breaking a story about a Karachi-based seminary that held many students in chain.
He was not the single journalist facing wrath, as one of his colleagues, Atif, has also gone underground since both received threatening calls followed by their chasing.
In an email published by CPJ, Ghulamuddin said the harassment by the (extremist) groups still continues. They waved a pistol at a woman living in my neighborhood, demanding she tell them where my family and I had moved.
As the tension grew, he notes, I deactivated my Facebook account, and tried to remove as much as I could from the online record of my phone numbers and other ways to trace me. But the reality is that the network of extremist groups offended by our story is very strong and our lives are in danger anywhere in the country.
I am living in hiding in Pakistan. My wife and our six-month old child are with me. It is a stark reality that the entire state of Pakistan remains a silent spectator as we and others in the journalists community face such threats as we go about pursuing our jobs.
Jamal Tarakai, a cameraman, who captured the sad happening of the killings of Chechens at the hands of security forces in Akhrotabad incident, is still on the run to protect his life as he started receiving threats after the incident.
His situation has become more vulnerable after the murder of surgeon Dr. Baqair Shah who has been killed apparently for annoying the security establishment through a post-mortem report that said that Chechens were killed by the bullets of Police and FC personnel, not through self-explosion.
I may also be killed like Baqir Shah, he told Geo TV after the murder of surgeon doctor. Taraki went underground in beginning but is now back to work as a journalist cant stay away from work for a long time.
Tarakai was operating from Quetta and Ghulamuddin in Karachi and the safety for those practicing in Lahore and Islamabad is also at risk.
The latest recording of statements by Hamid Mir and Najam Sethi is an eye-opener for those consider these cities safe. Both of them are not strangers to such intimidating tactics as they have been on radar screens of security establishment for a long time.
Hamid Mir said the latest episode of threatening messages started after he took unpopular position on memogate scandal and conducted a couple of programmes highlighting the excesses committed in Balochistan. He blamed army and intelligence agencies and said they should be held responsible in case of an untoward happening.
Najam Sethi was not army-specific as he said threats came from both state and non-state actors, including extremists, an expression used to mean intelligence agents and members of banned militant organizations.
It is unacceptable, that in todays democracy intelligence agents should be threatening their own civilians, Sethi said. A state within the state is not acceptable. He spent three months abroad escaping deadly threats but how long one could as he is also back to Pakistan amid threats.
Although people like Mir and Sethi believe that publicizing threats work, some incidents indicate such efforts backfire, CPJ said in an article on Pakistan.
The case in point is of Waqar Satti, who was abducted and tortured in 2008, when working on an assignment relating intelligence agencies being a stinger with a UK paper. As he publicized that ordeal in 2011 after Saleem Shehzad murder, he was thrashed again, that forced him flee abroad.
This practicing of intimidating and killing journalists goes unwarranted due to indifferent attitude of the government. Not only the authorities are reluctant to take any action, they make mockery of those under trouble.
Azaz Syed, another journalist, had his house attacked twice in 2010 and a responsible government official without probing concluded that it was the result of personal enmity. He echoed the same line while speaking to journalists at the residence of Saleem Shehzad, the day he was killed and at a time when his body was not reached Islamabad. He did not have different view while commenting on the brutal murder of Dr. Baqir Shah.
As he spoke about my torture case occurred in September 2010, with a high-powered delegation of CPJ in May 2011, he parroted the same line that was in contradiction with a Judicial Commission report as it expressed suspicion towards intelligence agency, directing the government assign DG ISI to investigate the matter.
The Commission report submitted to the government in December 2010 has neither been shared with me nor sent forward to respective authorities. I came to know about the findings through unofficial means.
A report of Judicial Commission set up to investigate the murder of a tribal journalist in 2006, Hayatullah Khan, has also been thrown under the carpet as repeated requests form journalist bodies to disclose the findings have gone unheard.
The fate of the investigation into the murder of journalist Wali Khan Babar is not different either. A report by Joint Investigation Team (JIT) into his killing was leaked to media through unofficial channels that pointed fingers towards the alleged killers. Again no investigation has taken place.
Only one journalists murder was investigated and the culprits brought to the justice, in the history of Pakistan. But he was a US journalist Daniel Pearl, killed by extremists in Karachi. And his case was investigated only under the US pressure.
This sad state of affairs has forced Pakistani journalists to believe that if their lives are too cheaper to be noticed? Even in current situation, foreign journalists are safer than Pakistani counterparts, said one analyst. Asked why, he said: Because they have foreign passports and powerful governments to bring culprits to justice. We have a government which lets such culprits go unpunished, he said.
THE NEWS
ISLAMABAD: As Pakistan retains the unenviable title of the most dangerous country for practicing journalists for the second consecutive year, 2012 is not promising either with journalists feeling far more threatened.
This whole drama continues unchecked due to the alleged complicity of the government as in none of the cases the investigation was completed, let alone prosecution of anyone, thus encouraging the attackers to keep on hounding and harassing even killing the journalists.
How riskier has become the profession of journalism is evident from the fact that six journalists, two senior and famous, have recorded threats to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), a New York based organization working for the safety of media persons, within a month.
Although the cases Hamid Mir and Najam Sethi have been publicized in Pakistan, the troubles facing other journalists have gone unnoticed here.
Ghulamuddin recently wrote an email to the CPJ questioning the writ of Pakistan state that has failed to provide him protection in face of threats that forced him into hiding after breaking a story about a Karachi-based seminary that held many students in chain.
He was not the single journalist facing wrath, as one of his colleagues, Atif, has also gone underground since both received threatening calls followed by their chasing.
In an email published by CPJ, Ghulamuddin said the harassment by the (extremist) groups still continues. They waved a pistol at a woman living in my neighborhood, demanding she tell them where my family and I had moved.
As the tension grew, he notes, I deactivated my Facebook account, and tried to remove as much as I could from the online record of my phone numbers and other ways to trace me. But the reality is that the network of extremist groups offended by our story is very strong and our lives are in danger anywhere in the country.
I am living in hiding in Pakistan. My wife and our six-month old child are with me. It is a stark reality that the entire state of Pakistan remains a silent spectator as we and others in the journalists community face such threats as we go about pursuing our jobs.
Jamal Tarakai, a cameraman, who captured the sad happening of the killings of Chechens at the hands of security forces in Akhrotabad incident, is still on the run to protect his life as he started receiving threats after the incident.
His situation has become more vulnerable after the murder of surgeon Dr. Baqair Shah who has been killed apparently for annoying the security establishment through a post-mortem report that said that Chechens were killed by the bullets of Police and FC personnel, not through self-explosion.
I may also be killed like Baqir Shah, he told Geo TV after the murder of surgeon doctor. Taraki went underground in beginning but is now back to work as a journalist cant stay away from work for a long time.
Tarakai was operating from Quetta and Ghulamuddin in Karachi and the safety for those practicing in Lahore and Islamabad is also at risk.
The latest recording of statements by Hamid Mir and Najam Sethi is an eye-opener for those consider these cities safe. Both of them are not strangers to such intimidating tactics as they have been on radar screens of security establishment for a long time.
Hamid Mir said the latest episode of threatening messages started after he took unpopular position on memogate scandal and conducted a couple of programmes highlighting the excesses committed in Balochistan. He blamed army and intelligence agencies and said they should be held responsible in case of an untoward happening.
Najam Sethi was not army-specific as he said threats came from both state and non-state actors, including extremists, an expression used to mean intelligence agents and members of banned militant organizations.
It is unacceptable, that in todays democracy intelligence agents should be threatening their own civilians, Sethi said. A state within the state is not acceptable. He spent three months abroad escaping deadly threats but how long one could as he is also back to Pakistan amid threats.
Although people like Mir and Sethi believe that publicizing threats work, some incidents indicate such efforts backfire, CPJ said in an article on Pakistan.
The case in point is of Waqar Satti, who was abducted and tortured in 2008, when working on an assignment relating intelligence agencies being a stinger with a UK paper. As he publicized that ordeal in 2011 after Saleem Shehzad murder, he was thrashed again, that forced him flee abroad.
This practicing of intimidating and killing journalists goes unwarranted due to indifferent attitude of the government. Not only the authorities are reluctant to take any action, they make mockery of those under trouble.
Azaz Syed, another journalist, had his house attacked twice in 2010 and a responsible government official without probing concluded that it was the result of personal enmity. He echoed the same line while speaking to journalists at the residence of Saleem Shehzad, the day he was killed and at a time when his body was not reached Islamabad. He did not have different view while commenting on the brutal murder of Dr. Baqir Shah.
As he spoke about my torture case occurred in September 2010, with a high-powered delegation of CPJ in May 2011, he parroted the same line that was in contradiction with a Judicial Commission report as it expressed suspicion towards intelligence agency, directing the government assign DG ISI to investigate the matter.
The Commission report submitted to the government in December 2010 has neither been shared with me nor sent forward to respective authorities. I came to know about the findings through unofficial means.
A report of Judicial Commission set up to investigate the murder of a tribal journalist in 2006, Hayatullah Khan, has also been thrown under the carpet as repeated requests form journalist bodies to disclose the findings have gone unheard.
The fate of the investigation into the murder of journalist Wali Khan Babar is not different either. A report by Joint Investigation Team (JIT) into his killing was leaked to media through unofficial channels that pointed fingers towards the alleged killers. Again no investigation has taken place.
Only one journalists murder was investigated and the culprits brought to the justice, in the history of Pakistan. But he was a US journalist Daniel Pearl, killed by extremists in Karachi. And his case was investigated only under the US pressure.
This sad state of affairs has forced Pakistani journalists to believe that if their lives are too cheaper to be noticed? Even in current situation, foreign journalists are safer than Pakistani counterparts, said one analyst. Asked why, he said: Because they have foreign passports and powerful governments to bring culprits to justice. We have a government which lets such culprits go unpunished, he said.
THE NEWS
