Gag the Press: Draconian Laws in Pakistan

BY Ahmad Naeem Khan| IN Media Freedom | 13/04/2003

                               Courtesy One World South Asia   

Ahmad Naeem Khan

LAHORE, April 8 (OneWorld) - In the latest of a series of attempts to muzzle the press in Pakistan, a high-ranking official in the northern Punjab province threatened the chief editor of a weekly English magazine to stop publication or face dire consequences. "Enough is enough. Our government has finally decided to proceed against your newspaper for working against the national interest," said home secretary of the Punjab province, Brig (retd) Ejaz Hussain Shah.

The telephonic threat was directed at the chief editor of the Independent, Ilyas Meraj, in mid-March. As the former head of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) in Punjab, Shah`s warning had import. Two days later, Shah personally met Meraj, who happens to be a cousin of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif and a leading businessman, warning him that unless he closed the weekly immediately, his business would suffer.

And, Shah added darkly, if Meraj didn`t comply, along with other editorial staff, he might receive the same treatment that was meted out to an opposition member of the Punjab legislature Rana Sanaullah. Sanaullah was reportedly kidnapped and tortured by officials of a state intelligence agency last month for speaking out in the provincial assembly against the role of the military in Pakistan politics.

`Working against the national interest` has been a favorite excuse of the establishment to silence the press, which it regards as its adversary. The editor of the Independent, Amir Mir, said the term `national interest` was being tossed about casually by the regime. "Such irresponsible statements only cause friction between the government and journalists," Mir added.

Former premier Benazir Bhutto agreed. She said the government had in fact compromised national interest by undermining the constitution, and human and economic rights. "An independent and free press is the pillar of the state`s stability and an absolute national interest," she said.

"Journalists in Pakistan also face threats from individuals and groups," said Mahboob Hiraj, a senior journalist with the News International. "Such people do not even hesitate to kill journalists to cover up their misdeeds," he said.

In its annual report on attacks on the press this week, the Committee to Protect Journalists said that of 19 journalists murdered worldwide in 2002, two were killed in Pakistan. Daniel Pearl, the South Asia correspondent of The Wall Street Journal, was abducted and killed while he was working on a story on the al-Qaeda and Taliban in Pakistan.

Shahid Soomro, a correspondent working with a popular vernacular daily was murdered in October, 2002 in the south Pakistan province of Sindh, apparently because he had written about abuses committed during last year`s general elections.

In 2001, Asadullah, a contributor to Kashmir Press International (KPI), a news agency controlled by the fundamentalist Jamaat-i-Islami party, was shot dead in the port city of Karachi. The motive was unclear.

In the most recent incident, freelance writer Fazal Wahab was shot dead while sitting in a roadside shop in Manglawar Bazar, near the resort town of Mingora in the North Western Frontier Province bordering Afghanistan on January 21, 2003. Among Wahab`s most controversial works was the book  Mullah Ka Kirdar (The Mullah`s Role), which analyzed the Islamic clergy`s involvement in politics.  He had also recently completed a manuscript about Osama bin Laden and the Taliban.

However, the Sword of Damocles hanging over journalists was the country`s Blasphemy Law, which was frequently used against journalists.

Take the January 2002 raid on the English daily Frontier Post in the north Pakistan town of Peshawar, after the paper published a letter to the editor titled, "Why do Muslims hate Jews?" The police barged into its office and arrested news editor Aftab Ahmed, chief reporter Imtiaz Hussain, columnist Qazi Sarwar, computer operator Waijul Hasan, editorial assistant Munawwar Mohsin, and Munwarul Hasan, who was in charge of the editorial pages.

The authorities considered the letter an insult to Muhammad because it criticized the Prophet`s treatment of Jews. The journalists were booked under section 295-C of the Blasphemy Law that carried the death penalty. The case is pending, with Mohsin still in jail though the others were released.

Another journalist who had a harrowing experience was Ayub Khoso, who contributed editorials to a vernacular daily in Sindh. In 1999, an anti-terrorist court convicted Khoso of blasphemy and sentenced him to 17 years in prison.

Khoso`s crime: He had published an excerpt from a book titled Hum Jins Parasti Ki Tehreek (Movement for Homosexuality), which contended that homosexuality emerged at the time of the prophet Adam, and his sons Habeal and Qabeel. Last October, Khoso was released after the High Court in the city of Hyderabad in Sindh, quashed the ruling.  The court also overturned the conviction of the daily`s editor, Zahoor Ansari. 

The case of Rehmat Shah Afridi, editor-in-chief of the Frontier Post was a stark example of how the powers that be wreak vengeance against those working against their interests. Afridi was implicated in a narcotics smuggling case for writing about corruption among officials of an anti-drugs agency funded by the U.S. government.

Arrested by the Anti-Narcotics Force in Punjab`s capital, Lahore, in April 1999 for allegedly possessing 20 kilograms of marijuana, Afridi was given the death sentence by an anti-narcotics court on June 27, 2001. Though tortured in the first weeks of his detention, Afridi consistently pleaded not guilty. He claimed he was a victim of vengeance by the agency.

When Shaheen Sehbai, the editor of the English daily The News resigned on March 1, 2002, he maintained he was acting under "government pressure". Indeed, though he was ordered to do so, Sehbai had refused to dismiss three journalists working for the daily.

One of the journalists, Kamran Khan, had written an article suggesting that Sheikh Omar, who encouraged Pearl`s abduction, was involved in the attack on the Indian parliament last December. To harass Sehbai, who joined as the editor of the online newspaper South Asia Tribune, a complaint was filed with the police in the north Pakistan town of Rawalpindi by a person employed by the military on August 21, 2002.

Sehbai was accused of a "dacoity" (burglary) in Pakistan in February 2001. The Pakistan government didn`t end it there. On November 2, 2002, it warned the media not to use or quote from reports published by the South Asia Tribune. The warning was issued in the form of a special announcement in leading Pakistani newspapers.

It warned the media that anybody reproducing reports from the online newspaper, would be prosecuted under the Defamation Law that came into effect on October 1, 2002. Under this law, journalists convicted of defamation risk up to three months imprisonment and a fine of approximately U.S $909. They may be ordered to publish an apology.

As if such draconian laws weren`t enough, governments in Pakistan have another weapon to crush dissent: brute force. Last year, at least 23 people were hurt in Faisalabad in central Punjab when police beat them with batons for walking out of a public rally organized by Pakistan President General Pervez Musharraf.

The rally was part of the General`s campaign to win public support for his presidential referendum. Journalists had refused to cover the event after Punjab Governor Khalid Maqbool, himself a retired general, complained about the coverage of the referendum campaign in the media. Maqbool complained about "misreporting and the irresponsible attitude of the media," and heckled a group of journalists who had come to cover the rally.

Authorities in Pakistan routinely employ various other methods to place curbs on the press, ranging from withholding advertisements and manipulating newsprint quotas, to doling out money and other favours to journalists.

## Link 1 text: The Hoot

## Link 1 URL:

http://thehoot.org/story.asp?storyid=Web210214166195hoot452003756&pn=1

## Link 2 text: Human Rights Commission of Pakistan

## Link 2 URL: http://hrcp-web.org/h-pr.htm

## Link 3 text: Committee to Protect Journalists

## Link 3 URL: http://www.cpj.org/killed/killed03.html

## Link 4 text: Reporters Sans Frontieres

## Link 4 URL: http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=4728