Follow the legal course on journalists’ killings
The number of killings and harassment of media people in Pakistan is the highest in the world, even greater than what it is in war zones
By Aoun Sahi
Pakistan remained one of the deadliest nations in the world for the journalist with 90 journalists killed in the country since 2000. The situation appears unlikely to change as in the first 9 weeks of this year six journalists have been killed in the country – four in Balochistan while one each in Karachi and tribal area.
On January 10, 2013, a suicide bomber exploded himself outside a billiard club at Alamdar Road, Quetta. The news of the incident reached media houses in Quetta in a minute and journalists rushed to the scene to report the incident live and take photographs. The journalists there were preparing to start their work when a second bomb went off killing more than a hundred people including three journalists — Imran Shaikh, a cameraman for Samaa News, Mohammad Iqbal, a photographer with News Network International (NNI) and Saifur Rehman, reporter of Samaa TV. Three other journalists were injured in the blast.
On February 25, 2013, Khushnood Ali Sheikh, chief reporter of state-run news agency Associated Press of Pakistan (APP) in Karachi, was killed in a ‘hit and run’ by a car near his house. He had refused to pay Rs50,000 extortion money and moved to Islamabad six months back.
On February 27, unidentified attackers shot dead Miranshah’s senior journalist Malik Mumtaz who worked for Geo TV and The News. Only three days after the murder of Malik Mumtaz, once again ‘unidentified’ attackers killed Mahmood Afridi, president of Qallat Press Club in Balochistan.
On average one journalist was killed every 28 days during the last six years more than in any other country. According to federal Union of Journalists and Inter Media Pakistan, cases of harassment and intimidation of journalists has been very high in the last one decade or so. Over 2000 journalists in Pakistan experienced harassment, intimidation, kidnap, arrest, detention, assault and injury since year 2000.
Government of Pakistan endorses the situation but the worst part of the problem is the scale of impunity against journalists in Pakistan. The one common thing in killing of all these 90 except Wall Street Journal’s journalist Daniel Pearl is that perpetrators have never been found, prosecuted or punished. “The biggest problem is not the various kinds of threats that exist but the fact that there is impunity,” says Adnan Rehmat, executive director of Intermedia Pakistan. “It is a fact that neither any union nor any media representative organisation or others invoked the legal process. Unless you punish criminals, you allow a de-facto license to continue to threaten journalists. The killer will not come up and say I have done it. You have to invoke the legal system,” he says.
It is crucial to understand the key characteristics that can put journalists in trouble. The pattern of journalists’ killings in Pakistan shows male TV journalists, reporter working in conflict areas and those without any training. “These are all preventable things; all that is required is safety protocol by media houses. They need to enforce mandatory training on security issues. They need to adopt preventive measures to reduce the risk,” says Adnan. But unfortunately, neither is that happening at the end of media organisations and journalists’ organisations nor at the government level. The cases of murder of journalists are hardly being investigated. The authorities have conducted investigations against killing of two journalists Hayatullah Dawar and Saleem Shahzad but the results of these investigations have nothing to say. In Pakistan the process for justice does not even begin in most of the cases of murdered journalists. Most of the journalists killed in Pakistan were not full time journalists as media houses do not hire full time journalists in most parts of the country, especially in troubled areas and they also came from poor backgrounds. Media houses never owned them while poor families could not invoke the lengthy and expensive legal process. Out of 90 journalists killed since January 2000 we were able to find the killers of only one journalist ‑Daniel Pearl.
Critics of journalists’ unions question their performance in the larger issue of impunity. They say what is stopping unions and press clubs in different regions from instituting class action cases? None of the journalists’ unions has invoked legal process so far. We can protest for 50 years but nothing would happen unless we pursue the legal course.
Pervez Shaukat, President of PFUJ, tells TNS that murder cases cannot be pursued by unions. “We can only play secondary role in such cases. It is up to the families of the journalists killed to deal with the cases. We do not have legal rights to do so. We have always helped the families in getting the case registered and most of these cases are in lower courts,” he says.
It is true that the environment has become too tough for journalists in Pakistan but we need to understand the situation. “We need to get rid of this culture of breaking news. Three journalists in Quetta got killed this January when they reached a bomb blast site within few minutes of the blast and a second blast took place, killing the three. We need to learn to say no. No story is worth human life,” says Shaukat, adding that media houses do not cooperate with PFUJ. “They are not even ready to get insurance of their employees. We have requested government for that,” he says that PFUJ has also requested UN human rights agency to look into the matter and send a representative to Pakistan. “It has agreed to send a representative to Pakistan in near future.”
Bob Dietz, coordinator of Committee to Protect Journalists Asia Program, who is in Pakistan to attend a conference on issues of security of journalists, tells TNS that the real underlying problem in Pakistan is either the unwillingness or inability of government to provide security to its citizens. “The number of journalists killed every year is the same every year. The largest was 12 in recent years. This is reflection of larger problem in country. Putting that into context is important. What amplifies the problem is that there is no serious effort on the part of government to bring killers of journalists to justice,” he says.
“Journalists cry that nothing happens and in a week or so they move on because they think they can do nothing about it,” he says. “Training is useful but not the answer to problems. Most of the journalists killed were on dangerous assignments just like the soldiers you send to war, and run the risk of being killed. But just as you train soldiers for war and give them proper equipment, journalists should be trained in the same manner and given security gears.”
Government would definitely have to act. Rehman Malik, Interior Minister though tells TNS that his government is very serious about providing security to journalists and media houses. “We pass on information to media houses and journalists as soon as we get information about threats to them,” he says that government is planning to set up a committee under him that would pursue all the cases of murdered journalists. But interestingly, in March 2012, Pakistan, along with India and Brazil, raised objections to a comprehensive Unesco proposal to protect the press and combat impunity in journalist murders.
A delegation of International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) also visited Pakistan under leadership of Christopher Warren, ex president of IFJ. It has met politicians and government agencies on the issue of security of journalists in Pakistan. “There has been for too long at the government level, not only this government but the governments in past several years, a lack of concern,” Warren tells TNS.
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