Pakistan army silences the mediaøs big guns

BY Ahmad Naeem Khan| IN Media Freedom | 10/12/2003

 Ahmad Naeem Khan in Lahore

 OneWorld South Asia

 (OneWorld.net) - As Pakistan`s premier arrived in France Tuesday, Reporters Without Borders (Reporters Sans Frontieres or RSF) drew Paris` attention to the ten-month campaign of intimidation against investigative journalist Amir Mir, who was fired as editor of the Pakistan weekly Independent, allegedly at President General Pervez Musharraf`s behest, and remains under threat. 

In a letter to French Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin, RSF has urged him to intercede on Mir`s behalf during premier Zafarullah Khan Jamali`s December 8-9 visit.

 While RSF has been drumming up support internationally, back in Pakistan, dozens of journalists demonstrated in support of Mir in the federal capital Islamabad last week.

 On November 22, unidentified persons had set fire to Mir`s car and shots were fired outside his home in Lahore, in the eastern province of Punjab.

 Says Mir, now the deputy editor of the Herald, an English-language monthly, "During the past few months, I have been threatened with dire consequences in one-on-one meetings with several senior military and political leaders."

 According to the editor, the authorities had told him General Musharraf was angered by his articles and that he should desist from writing against the general and the army.

The recent acts of intimidation reportedly began after Musharraf remarked at a meeting of leading newspaper editors on November 20 that the editors of the Herald and the monthly Newsline had not been invited because they had published articles damaging Pakistan`s international image. 

The August and November issues of the Herald carried investigative reports by Mir on the presence in Pakistan of a don of an Indian crime syndicate, Dawood Ibrahim.

 According to the General, the articles gave weight to the Indian allegation that Pakistan was protecting the don - who is on the run from Indian police. 

Earlier, the Weekly Independent had claimed that Musharraf himself chaired a meeting in Lahore at which it was decided to take concrete measures against the magazine, including withdrawal of all government and state sector advertising.  

Mir wrote in a June 12 editorial that it was not easy to keep a newspaper going in a country where the army dominates. A day later he was given the boot. 

Post the November 22 incident, the persecuted editor claims he has received warnings from Pakistan`s  Inter Services Intelligence to leave the country for the time being and refrain from taking up the issue. 

"Under these circumstances, I am really concerned about the safety of my family. I have already told my near and dear ones that if any harm is done to me or any of my family members, General Musharraf should be directly held responsible," he says. 

But federal minister for information and broadcasting Sheikh Rashid Ahmed trashes the allegations. "The incident could have been a result of some personal enmity or criminal activity," he says. But the government, he adds, has ordered a probe. 

The minister blames "vested interests" for exploiting the incident to malign Musharraf whose commitment to the cause of freedom of press, according to him, is beyond doubt. 

But RSF and Mir aren`t alone in painting the General and his junta as inimical to press freedom. Last week, in a letter to Musharraf, the US-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) charged that the military government was becoming increasingly intolerant of press freedom. 

It too cited the cases of Mir along with that of Rasheed Azam, a journalist and political activist from Khuzdar in the western Balochistan province.  

Azam was arrested on charges of sedition in August 2002 for publishing a photograph of army personnel beating a crowd of Baloch youngsters. 

Azam, notes the rights body, was subjected to torture by the Pakistani military. He remains in jail as his bail application has been rejected. 

But the government slams the report. "The HRW report about the harassment of two journalists by the government of Pakistan is a matter of deep regret," says Ahmed. 

"The claim that the President threatened Mir during his November 20 meeting with editors and columnists is absolutely unfounded and baseless," he maintains. 

HRW also wrote a letter to General Musharraf about Azam on October 10 this year, but to date there has been no response. 

Says the executive director of HRW (Asia), Brad Adams, "General Musharraf should publicly disassociate himself from the comments about the Herald and order an investigation into the attack on Mir`s car." 

"It is time for General Musharraf to show the world whether he is a reformer - or no different from other military rulers," says Adams. "How he deals with press freedom is a big test. As of now he and his government are failing." 

Senior vice-president of the Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists, Yasin Khan Sahir, points out that the union had taken up the matter through the Punjab Union of Journalists with the government of the eastern province of Punjab. 

Senior journalist Mahboob Hiraj says that journalists` organizations have been regularly pointing out incidents of intimidation of the press in Pakistan.  

As he emphasizes, "The military has always considered itself a sacred cow and its actions above question. But since it has intruded into political life, it should be prepared for public accountability and criticism."

 It`s an argument that an army which has ruled Pakistan for most of its existence, is unlikely to buy.

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