The impunity with which journalists are attacked is having a devastating
effect on Pakistani democracy.
Like the grimalkin, bitter,
evil and old are the forces that lie behind the threats to free speech in
Pakistan. These forces threaten teenage girls like Malala and veteran
journalists like VOA reporter Mukkaram Khan Atif. The threats are more severe
and more frequent. Brave journalists do still continue to report the issues,
but they often do so knowing that they are placing their lives on the line. The
culprits meanwhile operate with almost complete impunity.
“If you ignore what we
say, you’re picking a fight with us,” said the intimidating voice. “We will
come for you again.” Mukkaram Khan Atif had been threatened and followed
before, but these calls were becoming more and more regular at the time I began
to meet with him in Peshawar in 2011.
Khan held strong views
on journalistic freedom, but was nonetheless feeling the pressure. “It’s so
hard to know something and not report about it. I feel dishonest when I do
that. Thank God I don’t have children to worry about if I am killed,” he told
me, his tone a mix of sorrow and relief. “And I surely know they will win,
because they are armed and I am not.” Still, Khan continued to do his job.
On January 17, 2012, the
Pakistani Taliban shot and killed Mukkaram Khan Atif during Friday prayers.
Khan’s murder sent a
message to other journalists in Peshawar and across the country. It was a
message from Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP): Report on us, and we will kill
you.
A similar message was
sent with the killing of Saleem Shahzad, whose reporting exposed the
connections between al-Qaeda and the ISI, naming Navy personnel and
their proximity to al-Qaeda. The Inter-Service Intelligence has been implicated in his death, although the agency denies any
involvement. The truth may never be known: The commission set up to investigate
his murder concluded only that the culprit could not be named. This despite emails and
statements by Saleem’s close friends and human rights groups he had alerted
before his murder, pointing to the involvement of Pakistani intelligence
services. This impunity sent another message to journalists: Take on the State,
you will be killed and your killers will never face justice.
Since Shahzad’s
assassination, nobody else has been able to report on the interactions between
state and non-state actors that continue in Pakistan.
Meanwhile, the attacks
continue. In the last few weeks alone, three high-profile journalists have been targeted.
Among them, the attack
on Hamid Mir has created a huge media storm, with Mir’s critics accusing him of
overly abrupt finger-pointing. Although the attack did raise some important
questions about the ethics of his employer, GEO News, the overall climate of
censorship remains the overriding issue.
As an intelligence
officer once jokingly said to me when I was investigating Saleem Shahzad’s
murder in 2011, “One voice muzzled, silences a lot of noise” (Urdu:“Aik ka mun band karo, saraa
shor kam hojata hia”).Although the remark was off the cuff, it was a
chilling insight into the psychology of Pakistan’s intelligence community, and
indeed into the mindset of the forces that threaten journalism in the country
today.
Pakistan remains one of
the deadliest countries in the world for journalists, and impunity for the
attackers remains almost absolute. The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ)
records 54 journalists
killed since 1992, of which it defines 30 as having been murdered,
28 with impunity. The only two journalists whose murderers have been charged
are the Wall Street Journal’s Daniel Pearl and more recently GEO
news reporter Wali Khan Babar. However, very reliable sources who were close to
the investigations tell me that the actual murderers are still at large.
A recent report from
Amnesty International gives 34 journalists killed since March 2008, and at least eight
murdered since the election of Nawaz Sharif. For his part, Sharif has pledged
that he will find a solution to the attacks on journalists, yet recent weeks
have been some of the deadliest for journalists in the country’s history.
Many – although not all
– militant groups take credit for their attacks on journalists. It is, however,
altogether more difficult to investigate the involvement of political, military
or intelligence forces, when the state is involved in intimidation. Even when
the media is being intimidated by non-state actors – banned militant groups
including Lashkar-e-Taiba (the group behind the Mumbai attack),
Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (responsible for recent sectarian violence), Sipah Sahaba,
the Pakistani Taliban, and factions of Al-Qaeda such as Jaish-e-Osama – many
journalists believe the state benefits. And even if it is militants who are
responsible for the attacks, the government is failing in its duty to preserve
a free press. Rather than doing their job, Pakistan’s security forces are
demanding that media groups be shut down.
A silenced press has
broader implications. For instance, journalists are kept out of North
Waziristan, where the U.S. has been concentrating its drone strikes. Washington
says these strikes are killing mostly militants, and are nearly always
effective operations. Islamabad claims that large numbers of civilians –
including children – are being killed. The two governments present very
different numbers. Without journalists to investigate, who is to say where the
truth lies?
Censorship has always
been present in Pakistan, but it is the impunity with which journalists are
intimidated, attacked and killed that is the most immediate concern. The
climate of fear becomes more oppressive with each year. The media is not the
cause of this, but collectively it must be part of the solution. Pakistani
media organizations need to come together and pressure the government to hold the
culprits accountable. This would be a first step. For its part, the state needs
to stop taking umbrage at every accusation and start earning trust by
investigating and holding accountable the forces of intimidation.
A free media is not only
critical for Pakistani society; it has an essential role to play in the
regional fight against terrorism and militancy. After all, how can Pakistan be
considered a player in the fight against terror, if as a state it cannot
preserve one of the pillars of its own democracy?
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