Censorship by murder

IN Media Freedom | 06/06/2011

The killing of Syed Shahzad is a royal gag order -- a warning to the journalists who are speaking out about the unravelling of the state of Pakistan due to its destructive obsession with a security doctrine that has nothing to do with the people,

says ADNAN REHMAT

(Courtesy: The News on Sunday)

“If you want a good and effective strategy for reducing the risks for journalists in Pakistan, we will have to specify exactly which state agencies create difficulties and dangers for journalists rather than just lumping all of them together as one entity by calling them ‘state agencies’. Let me identify them on the basis of my own experiences -- these include ISI, MI, IB, FIA, police and even ISPR.”

So said Syed Saleem Shahzad, kidnapped, tortured and killed ruthlessly last week. He was speaking at a meeting convened in the fall of 2010 of some senior field journalists who had been gathered together by Pakistani media support organisation Intermedia to identify distinct threats and threat sources that the media practitioners have to contend with on a daily basis. The meeting was a consultation aimed at developing a comprehensive support programme for the media in general and media practitioners in particular to reduce the threats they face by building their professional capacities and those of their media organisations. Of course, threats from state agencies, including also those from non-security agencies, were not the only threat sources identified by the meeting. Others included terrorist groups, criminals, political groups, religious groups and even feudals, industrialists and business houses.

In retrospect, what stands clear from that meeting was not just the contribution of Saleem in terms of concrete examples and experiences in helping develop the threat framework that Pakistani journalists operate in but also his keenness in developing institutional mechanisms and support channels that would help Pakistan climb down from its dubious distinction of being probably the most dangerous country to practice journalism. Certainly Saleem’s undeserved death and the statistics before him confirm this: he is the 74th journalist killed in the line of duty in Pakistan since January 1, 2000. This is 74 too many.

Saleem Shahzad’s targeted murder last week and before that the target bombing of Nasrullah Afridi earlier last month are proof, if any were required, that the working conditions of journalists in Pakistan are extremely difficult. The myriad threats they face in performance of their work include intimidation, harassment, assault, injuries and fairly regularly even death. With the increase in number of journalists -- from 2,000 to 17,000 -- as a result of media expansion in Pakistan between 2002 and 2011, the magnitude and intensity of threats to the journalists have also increased. During this period, around 90 journalists have been abducted or kidnapped and more than 270 have been injured or assaulted in the line of duty. At least 19 have been killed in the last 18 months alone.

Furthermore, the war on terror in general and incidents like armed resistance from a mosque in Islamabad in 2007, the Swat operation and exodus in 2010, and military operation in the federally administered tribal areas (Fata) since 2008 in particular have put lives of the journalists in real danger. Even in non-conflict areas of rural Sindh and south Punjab, the journalists are equally in danger and facing threats quite similar to those stalking their colleagues in Fata, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan.

What does the rising number of journalists being killed portend? Saleem’s death seems to be more than just a punishment for a plucky journalist refusing to take advice on reporting information that certain authorities may not have wanted published. Many in the media community had been wondering these past few weeks how the Deep State was going to respond to the post-Osama indictment it has drawn in the media because it is not in their nature to tolerate dissenting views when specifics are thrown their way, let alone put up with exposes of the kind the fearless Saleem dealt in. Not all may be saying it on the TV channels but privately most of Pakistan’s media community believes the Deep State chose Saleem to “set an example.” They feel this is a royal gag order -- a warning to the journalists who are speaking out about the unravelling of the state of Pakistan due to its destructive obsession with a security doctrine that has nothing to do with the people.

It appears that between Saleem and Ali Dayan Hasan, the country representative in Pakistan of the respected Human Rights Watch, and Saleem’s widow herself, they have all but indicted the security establishment for his kidnap, torture and murder. Pakistan’s media community on Facebook points out that al-Qaeda/Taliban rarely kidnap, torture and kill; they go straight for target-kills -- quick and complete. Saleem’s kidnap, torture and murder are the preferred mode of punishment of the security establishment. It is also telling that Saleem’s widow has refused to register a case against anyone -- she neither wants an investigation, nor charges pressed against the faceless killers, nor justice from the state.

Knowing Saleem and his family, this is their way of saying it all without saying a word because they do not expect justice from authorities they suspect of complicity. There can’t be a more devastating indictment of a state’s abject failure to inspire even hope, much less confidence, in a citizen. For such a citizen the state is dead. And that’s the final indictment.

While there is no proof that can, or will likely, be upheld in a court of law incriminating the security establishment for his murder, it is clear as the blue skies that he’s been killed for his reporting. Indeed he speaks from his grave: he feared being killed and had told his wife whom to contact if murdered (Dayan), and put in writing his last formal encounter with the intelligence agencies which conveyed him enough menace to warrant documenting it and sending it to Dayan with the instructions that this evidence be released if he’s killed.

The way TV channels were provided the photo of Saleem’s mutilated face and the way it was repeatedly aired is also telling. His family and friends may not have deserved this last image seared in their memories of him, but many in the media community believe this picture was released to the media for two purposes: (i) to confirm that he has been punished for crossing a limit that he was warned not to, and (ii) to let the 17,000 journalists of Pakistan know what happens when you don’t pay heed. Prepare for a dramatic rise in self-censorship.

Saleem was killed to silence him but this enforced censorship only reflects the Pakistani state’s lack of confidence in itself. The test of democracy is freedom of criticism and it seems democracy is withering away once again in Pakistan.