Don’t glorify terrorists, Pak govt tells media

IN Media Practice | 15/10/2004

Reprinted from the Indian Express,  Thursday, October 14, 2004

PTI

ISLAMABAD, OCTOBER 13: The Pakistan government has warned the national print and electronic media against ‘‘glorifying terrorists as heroes’’ and threatened to take action under anti-terrorism laws if they failed to fall in line.

‘‘Do not present terrorists as heroes, we warn you. Terrorists want to live by the media. Don’t play into their hands,’’ Pakistan Information Minister Sheikh Rashid said in Peshwar yesterday after presiding over a provincial information ministers conference.

‘‘Today, we have warned (the media). If they don’t pay heed, then we’ll see what we can do,’’ he was quoted as saying by the Daily Times.

A statement issued after the ministers’ meeting said Anti-Terrorism Amendment Ordinance of 2001 would be used if the media did not stop glorifying terrorists as heroes.

It said the meeting took serious note of attempts by certain private TV channels ‘‘to praise terrorists and criminals by showing their interviews.’’

Rashid said the government considered spokesmen of terrorist groups also terrorists. Rashid said the warning to media is not aimed at curbing the freedom of press. The media should help the government fight terrorists, he added.

His warning followed media interviews of a pro Qaeda tribal leader Ahmad Mahsud, who owned the responsibility for abducting two Chinese engineers on October 9.

Mahsud, who was released from Guantanamo Bay by the US a few months ago, had been making appearances before media in the tribal Waziristan agency and even telephoning newspersons in Peshwar by satellite phones to outline his demands.

Asked why the government in the past ‘‘garlanded’’ terrorists, Rashid said ‘‘it was a wrong decision,’’ the Daily Times reported.