Khan said police beat him with clubs outside the parliament building and accused the media of stirring up the protests. He was returning to the Express Tribune newspaper offices after covering marches by opposition parties calling for the government of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to resign.

Three people were killed in the weekend clashes. Pakistan Press Foundation said it has received reports of at least 28 journalists injured, some by police who also allegedly attacked their vehicles, while reporting on the security forces teargassing and shelling protestors.

Islamabad police did not return calls or emails requesting comment.

Medics at Polyclinic Hospital treated Khan for head injuries. He was transferred to a private clinic after authorities ordered the arrest of any protestors with minor injuries at the hospital, according to the Express Tribune.

Pakistan has been in turmoil since mid-August when tens of thousands of protesters led by Imran Khan, a famous former cricket player, and cleric Tahir ul-Qadri flooded into the capital Islamabad, accusing the government of corruption and election fraud. Violence escalated over the weekend, stoking fears of army intervention in the coup-prone nation.

Thomson Reuters Foundation

“It is amazing that Pakistan is accommodating 3.5 million illegal Afghan immigrants; however, a journalist who mistakenly crossed the border was sentenced to four years in prison which is sheer injustice,” President Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists Afzal Butt said on Thursday.

The sentence was announced on July 13 and was imposed by a military court in the eastern province of Nangarhar. Khan, who works for the Karachi based TV station ARY News, was arrested by the Afghan authorities in Nangarhar in April after travelling to Peshawar, in north-western Pakistan, to interview Taliban leaders and suddenly losing contact with his colleagues.

The Pakistani media reported his arrest in Afghanistan on May 5. Afghanistan’s National Directorate of Security (NDS) was subsequently said to suspect him of spying but no formal charge was brought against him. The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) urged the Afghanistan and Pakistan governments to act urgently for the safe return of the journalist.

Reporters Without Borders and a Pakistani press freedom organization, Freedom Network, have condemned the four-year jail sentence that an Afghan court has imposed on Pakistani TV reporter Faizullah Khan for illegally crossing into Afghanistan while researching a story on the Taliban.

The South Asian Free Media Association (SAFMA) Afghan chapter has been contacted in Kabul seeking help in the release of the Pakistani journalist. However SAFMA’s in-charge in Kabul has called for a letter from SAFMA office-bearers in Pakistan. Information Minister Pervez Rashid urged Karzai to issue a presidential pardon.

“I appeal to Afghan president Hamid Karzai to use his powers to pardon Faizullah Khan,” Rashid said in a press conference in Islamabad.

Rashid said Pakistan was also using diplomatic channels for the release of its journalist. “Both the Ministry of Interior and the Information Ministry have been pursuing this matter from day one when he was arrested,” he added. Rashid said Pakistan respected Afghanistan’s judicial system and was appealing verdict in an Afghan court. For all the aid and succour Pakistan gives Afghans and Afghan refugees the Afghan government should release the harmless Pakistani journalist who was only doing his job.

Daily Times

Talking to a journalists’ delegation, he said, if needed, he would personally talk to President Hamid Karzai for the release of Faizullah. The delegation informed the President that an Afghan court has sentenced Faizullah Khan to four years in prison for not possessing travel documents. Faizullah’s wife Sania Faiz and his son also met the president.

The Nation

Faizullah Khan, a reporter with the Pakistani private TV channel, ARY News, was arrested in April by Afghan security forces in Nangarhar Province. He was sentenced earlier this month to four years in jail for entering without travel documents and communicating with militant sources.

Information and Broadcasting Minister Pervaiz Rashid urged President Karzai to issue a presidential pardon.

“I appeal to Afghan President Hamid Karzai to use his powers to pardon Faizullah Khan,” Rashid said in a press conference in Islamabad. The spouse of the detained journalist and PFUJ President Afzal Butt were also present. Rashid said that Pakistan was also using diplomatic channels for the release of its journalist. “Both the ministry of interior and the ministry of information have been pursuing this matter from day one, the day he was arrested,” he added.

Rashid said that Pakistan respected Afghanistan’s judicial system and was appealing the verdict in an Afghan court.

Wafiullah Usmani, the head of the national security court of Nangarhar, in eastern Afghanistan, last week told AFP that Khan had no travel documents at the time of his arrest. Khan was arrested with two members of the Pakistani Taliban on the Afghan side of the border, he said.

Pakistani journalist organisations have staged protest rallies across the country and have demanded the Afghan government release Karachi-based Faizullah Khan before the Muslim festival of Eidul Fitr expected on Tuesday.

According to APP, Rashid said that Foreign Office and the Information Ministry were coordinating and taking up this issue seriously and that the Pakistani counsel general has also met Faizullah in jail and lawyers have been hired for his defence.

Earlier, wife of Faizullah Khan appealed to the Afghan president to pardon her husband so that he can return home before Eidul Fitr. She thanked the government of Pakistan and journalist community for their efforts for Faizullah’s release.

PFUJ President Afzal Butt also thanked the Pakistani government for standing by the journalist community in difficult times. He also appreciated the cooperation being provided by the Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Information and Broadcasting.

Daily Times

Last week, the Karachi based reporter was convicted by a Jalalabad court to serve a four year jail on charges of spying as he entered the country without legal permission.

Speaking at the protest demonstration organised by Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists (PFUJ- Afzal Butt group) at the National Press Club, Information Minister Senator Pervaiz Rasheed said that the government had directed the foreign office to provide all possible support to Faizullah.

The protests were held outside the press clubs of all the major cites.

“We respect judiciary and the decision must have been taken after thorough consideration but we would like the Afghan government to look into the matter on humanitarian grounds and resolve the matter at the earliest,” the information minister added.

Senior journalist says Afghan govt has pardoned Faizullah, will release him soon
The chairman of Senate Standing Committee on Interior, Senator Talah Mehmood, said the Pakistan, Afghanistan border had not been clearly demarcated, therefore anybody could go astray.

“Faizullah might have crossed the border unintentionally but putting him behind bars for four years for this crime is too harsh,” Senator Talah said. The senator said Afghan government should also stop all its citizens from crossing into Pakistan illegally.

Other speakers including Afzal Butt, the president of his own faction of PFUJ said Faizullah went to Afghanistan to do a story on Taliban and North Waziristan, two months back.

“Initially, there were reports that he was missing and could have been kidnapped, but later Kabul communicated to the Pakistani authorities that they had arrested him on May 6, 2014 as he entered into Afghanistan without proper document,” Mr Butt added.

He demanded the government that efforts should be made for his release before Eid.

Pakistan to assist journalist jailed by Afghan court

However, Salim Safi, anchorperson announced that the Afghan ambassador in Islamabad had assured him that Faizullah would be released before Eid, as the president Karzai has pardoned his punishment.

The protest was also attended by anchorperson Hamid Mir, who after recovering from the deadly attack, was able to walk and received a warm welcome from fellow journalists and politicians.

DAWN

Similarly, the government’s standard mantra expressing indignation and ‘zero-tolerance’ cloaks a callous indifference motivated by raw fear and guilt. This malady informs almost its every activity and, for that matter, that of the ruling classes and political society.

Thank God, Hamid Mir has survived and, Insha’Allah, will soon resume his heroic mission to reveal the corruption, double-talk and violence that passes for governance in Pakistan. Thank God, there are others like him, including many dedicated and fearless ladies, who have the heart to speak truth to the ugly faces of arbitrary, evil and monstrous power despite the most vicious threats of assault, defamation, persecution, torture and death.

Our hope as a nation lies in the continued exposure of those in our power and political structures whose whole history has been dominated by a litany of intentional and unintentional harm done to the country. They did absolutely nothing for the Pakistan Movement. They played a key role in bringing about the disgrace, defeat and demise of Quaid-e-Azam’s Pakistan. They did everything to ensure that no lessons would ever be learned and put into practice to prevent the repetition of this crime against the nation. They buried enquiry commission reports. And today, when the country stands on the brink of disaster, they allow no fundamental and comprehensive reform to avert final failure of the State of Pakistan.

The great English romantic poet Byron wrote “fanatics have their dreams wherewith they weave a paradise for a sect.” For our exploiters, who are a sect unto themselves, paradise means wielding arbitrary and irresponsible power and influence as well as stealing the bread, dreams and life-blood of the downtrodden, honest and hardworking poor and, of course, immunity from any earthly accountability.

The fact that an Islamic and patriotic cloak is used to cover an implacable determination to continue with business as usual indicates a hypocritical mindset which flies in the face of an elementary understanding of the basic tenets of Islam which is, above all, a religion of humanity. Such an attitude that involves an attempt to interpret and use the teachings of the Holy Quran against the meaning and purpose of its message has been condemned in the Holy Quran itself.

Crimes committed in the name of religion have been lamented throughout history. This truth, along with James Boswell’s insight that patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel, as well as Lord Acton’s wise observation that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely, is conveyed in the language of intimidation and death in today’s Pakistan.

Those who, through acts of commission and omission, continue to uphold this state of affairs cannot be called Pakistanis in any meaningful sense. Pakistan was meant to mean freedom and dignity. Those responsible for the state of affairs in Pakistan today can have no concept of the culture and meaning of freedom and dignity. Their history is their DNA. Their actions demonstrate this every single day and the daily news headlines are more eloquent on the subject than any doctoral dissertation can hope to be.

From today, every single person pretending to political leadership and national responsibility, and every single institution that claims a share in the exercise of power and policy stands accused of being responsible to one degree or another for the present state of affairs in Pakistan. They are guilty as accused unless their actions exonerate them. The blood of the people of Pakistan will be on their hands unless it is washed away by selfless and self-sacrificing service, a prospect that appears infinitely remote at this moment.

I have seen the reactions of a number of persons belonging to the so-called comfortable classes to the latest outrage. They were empty. Their responses were essentially those of a politically deadened people who were otherwise perfectly alive and decent human beings.

Accordingly, should the people await miracles? In fact, they have no option but to agitate, organise, struggle, educate and make progress, imbued with the strength of hope and conviction, for as long as it takes for miracles to become commonplace. If not, they will be largely condemned to die useless deaths after having lived abbreviated and wasted lives. However common, this is a tragedy beyond any description. Other peoples have taken huge strides towards overcoming the impediments, obstacles, terrors and humiliations our people face every day. So must we.

Placed below are a few lines the first four of which were written immediately after the judicial murder of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto; the last four today:

What is it that ails my country?/What is it that I may do?
Why is it I fear an answer/That all I fear may be true?
It is you who ail your country./There is nothing you can’t do.
Yet you fear your every answer/For your questions are not true.

The writer is a former envoy to the US and India. Email: ashrafjqazi@yahoo.com

The News

Unidentified gunmen opened fire on Mir’s car as the journalist was driving on his way from the Karachi airport to the studios of Geo TV. Mir, who was hit by six bullets, was rushed to a local hospital. According to reports, the journalist is currently in stable condition.

Following the attack, Mir’s brother, Amir, a well known investigative journalist with The News International, publicly stated that “elements in the ISI and its chief Lt Gen Zaheerul Islam should be blamed” for the attack against his brother. But a spokesman for the Inter-Service Intelligence (ISI), Pakistan’s powerful intelligence agency, said “that allegations against ISI or [the] head of ISI without any basis is highly regrettable and misleading”, The Express Tribune reported.

Commenting on the attack, International Press Institute (IPI) Executive Board Member Owais Ali told IPI: “Despite high sounding commitments to press freedom, the attempted murder on the life of IPI member Hamid Mir demonstrates the callous attitude of Pakistani government to providing security to media personnel and institutions.”

In March this year, following a meeting with a Committee to Protect Journalists’ delegation, Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif promised to take steps to stop attacks against journalists. But journalists across the country have staged demonstrations condemning the attack against Mir and the government’s failure to ensure safety for their colleagues.

“Hamid Mir, who is the anchor of one of Pakistan’s most popular talk show, was shot by an assailant who knew of Mir’s travel plans,” Ali, who is also Chairman of Pakistan Press International (PPI), explained to IPI today, highlighting the failure of police to stop the attackers.

“After shooting at Mir’s car, the attacker was given a ride on a motorcyclist by an accomplice and was joined by another motorcyclist and car, who chased Mir for many miles as they continued to shoot at his car.

“All this happened in broad daylight in one of the busiest roads of Pakistan’s largest city. The attackers were not challenged by any law enforcement agencies and they easily managed to escape.”

Ali noted: “Those in authority knew of the threats to the life of Mir and yet they did absolutely nothing to provide security to Mir.”

Following the event, which was strongly condemned by Pakistan’s politicians, Prime Minister Sharif ordered a judicial inquiry into the attack and decided to constitute a three-member judicial commission to probe the murder attempt on Mir. On Monday Pakistan’s Chief Justice Tassaduq Hussain Jillani approved the names of three Supreme Court judges to form the judicial commission.

“The setting up of the judicial commission by the government to investigate the attack is welcome and it is hoped that the commission will be able to fix the responsibility for the attack,” Ali told IPI. “The government also needs to ensure that the report of the commission is released to the public. Furthermore, the government should immediately make public the report of a similar judicial commission that investigated the murder of journalist Hayatullah Khan who was murdered in 2006.

“There is also need to seriously investigate allegations by Mir’s brother that Mir had told his family, employers, government officials and army officials that some officials of Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence, including ISI’s chief Lt. Gen Zaheerul Islam had prepared a plan to eliminate him.”

Journalists in Pakistan are often targeted because of their coverage and impunity remains a major problem. According to the IPI Death Watch, nine journalists were killed in 2013 in Pakistan, where IPI has recorded some of the highest figures of journalists killed in the past 10 years.

In November 2012, Mir escaped a bid on his life, after an explosive device was found under his car. Local and international news outlets reported that the attack may have been connected with Mir’s coverage of the shooting of teenage activist Malala Yousafzai, for which he received open criticism by the Pakistani Taliban. On that occasion, IPI reported that Mir, who does not shy away from covering the sensitive political and security situation, said he could not be sure who was behind the act, as he had received threats from the Taliban as well as from “state actors”.

IPI

Umar Cheema, a Pakistani journalist, wrote often about the military. Then one night masked men hauled him from his car and during six hours of torture, sexual humiliation, and threats, they made it clear that the reporting should stop. Cheema not only refused to stop writing, he went public with his ordeal. “I wanted to send a message that I had not cowed down,” Cheema said of his response to the 2010 assault. “I did nothing wrong, and that kept me strong.” The Committee to Protect Journalists awarded him its International Press Freedom Award in 2011.

The assault spurred him on to do more reporting, and, in December 2012, he launched the Center for Investigative Reporting in Pakistan. To mark the opening, he published a list of members of Parliament who paid no taxes and ignited a political firestorm. Despite his success in unearthing wrongdoing and corruption–some might even say because of it–Cheema has few powerful domestic allies or financial backers to develop his work.

There are Umar Cheemas in most countries, ferreting out land titles, company accounts, and public records, in an effort to hold governments and businesses accountable and serve the public interest. But many are under-funded and exposed. They are harassed, threatened, or lose their jobs. An increasing number are imprisoned, and many are simply murdered.

Their work and the broader role of journalists and media organizations as a voice for the poor and powerless, a provider of information and ideas, a forum for politics and culture, and an engine of change is acknowledged by economists and political scientists as vital to economic development and democracy.

But multilateral institutions from the United Nations to the World Bank, along with individual Western donor nations and agencies, have a mixed record in providing the sustained support, protection, and investment that journalists in repressive or impoverished countries or regions require. At the dawn of this millennium, world leaders vowed to improve the health and welfare of much of humanity by 2015 and agreed on eight goals for doing so. Press freedom was not among them. Neither were democratic governance and accountability, which press freedom underpins.

The UN Millennium Development Goals are credited by some economists with helping mobilize support for overseas development aid, which rose sharply between 2001 and the financial crash of 2008. The increase contributed to lifting about 500 million people out of extreme poverty, although some economists argue that the economic rise of China was as much a factor in this success as a surge in aid.

Whatever their achievements, the eight goals have been overtaken, not least by the explosion in communication technology, and no longer fully address peoples’ aspirations. According to the UN’s own poll of more than half a million people worldwide in 2013, citizens want the UN to focus on promoting open and responsive government, which they ranked as a priority behind only food and health care.

Keeping politicians, government officials, and business people honest, however, is no easy task, especially in poor countries where institutions, civil society and the rule of law are weak. The role of journalists and bloggers empowered by new technologies in helping to improve the lives of ordinary citizens has never been clearer, and the price that some of them pay in terms of their own lives or liberty has never been higher. International and regional institutions that promote economic development or security are increasingly aware of the role of journalists as defenders of human rights, vital to promoting transparent and accountable government.

This awareness surfaced in a UN-commissioned report by 27 prominent political leaders and experts that freedom of expression advocates welcomed as an opportunity to put press freedom on the UN agenda.

The Report of the High-Level Panel of Eminent Persons on the Post-2015 Development Agenda published in May 2013 lays out ways to end extreme poverty. The report, titled “A New Global Partnership: eradicate poverty and transform economies through sustainable development,” has as one of its recommended goals the promotion of “good governance and effective institutions.” To reach that goal the leaders identify two necessary conditions: “ensure that people enjoy freedom of speech, association, peaceful protest and access to independent media and information,” and “guarantee the public’s right to information and access to government data.”

“This report is hugely welcome,” writes James Deane, director of policy and learning at BBC Media Action, the BBC’s international development charity. “It presents a fresh, ambitious agenda that provides a comprehensive framework for meeting a set of immense development challenges. It does so by putting issues of governance and rights–including freedom of the media–at its heart, not its periphery. That has not happened before.”

The panel, which was headed by British Prime Minister David Cameron and Presidents Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono of Indonesia and Ellen Johnson Sirleaf of Liberia, also called for a “data revolution” for citizens to access information and statistics and for governments to make them available. “I’m excited that we have expanded the boundaries,” said the report’s lead author, Homi Kharas of the Brookings Institution. “The press has an extremely important role to play … in holding authorities and private companies accountable,” he told CPJ.

That a free press and democratic governance go hand in hand is now well established in the development community. But it was not always so, as made evident by the glaring omissions in the first set of UN goals in 2000.

The World Bank started considering press freedom in its assessments in the 1990s. “We showed that corruption mattered for economic development,” said economist Daniel Kaufmann, president of the Revenue Watch Institute, who used to work at the World Bank in several capacities, including as lead economist.

However, over the years, a number of authoritarian countries have become uneasy with the bank’s focus on governance. Kaufmann added that there has been “pushback” by economically powerful states unsympathetic to policies that promote press freedom and accountability, and that, he said, has made implementing a global policy difficult.

Reporters rely on institutional support to do the kinds of watchdog journalism that keep democracy healthy. These conditions include rule of law, functioning state institutions, an independent judiciary, access to information, and strong civil society groups.

Some of these elements were present in a few Eastern European countries, including Poland and the Czech Republic, in the years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, and press freedom and governance made important strides in both countries. After Indonesia shook off the yoke of President Suharto, the press played an important role in nudging the country toward greater democracy.

This was also true in post-apartheid South Africa. Since Nelson Mandela left office, however, some officials and business people have sought to cover up corruption or incompetence, and media groups and human rights activists have had to push back against threats of encroachment on free expression and access to information.

“Many newly free or newly democratic states celebrate freedom of the media, often because brave reporting helped them to become free,” South African editor Brendan Boyle told CPJ. “But many of those same states and governments turn against the same reporters and media when the reality of transforming their societies starts to bite and the media report on their failings.”

As editor of the Daily Dispatch in East London, Boyle had a pair of young reporters investigate corruption and mismanagement in South Africa’s school hostels. Education is a prime sector of the Millennium Development Goals strategy. His reporters won the CNN Africa Journalist Award for 2013. “The reports led to some improvements but also saw the newspaper banned this month from covering the annual year-end examinations for school leavers,” Boyle, who has since become executive editor of South Africa’s Sunday Times, added.

For decades, authoritarian leaders of emerging economies have tried to promote “development journalism,” that is, insisting journalists accentuate positive news in the name of economic advancement. This has become prevalent in Africa, where China’s growing economic and political clout has spilled over to journalism. Autocrats from Gambia to Ethiopia laud their own versions of a Chinese media development model, arguing that critical or “socially irresponsible” journalism and pesky investigative reporting hurt the economy, undermine stability, and deter foreign investors. The Ugandan Parliament still has a bill before it that could criminalize reporting that the authorities deem “economic sabotage.”

This false choice between development and press freedom has been pedaled by autocrats throughout much of the life of the millennium goals. The High-Level Panel’s report explodes that argument by placing democratic governance at the core of any anti-poverty drive and recognizing the role of a free press in achieving it.

“Making media freedom a formal measure of good governance with potential links to the assessment of investment risk would not only help to protect reporters and publications but to protect societies from governments unable or unwilling to protect and to serve their people,” Boyle said.

Challenging the economy-versus-rights narrative can be dangerous and underlines the need for a comprehensive international approach to defend journalists. The figures speak for themselves: more journalists were behind bars in 2012–some 232 worldwide–than at any time since CPJ began counting them in 1990. In the past 15 years, the trend line for journalists killed for their work has been rising, averaging more than 47 deaths per year.

Significantly, the ability or willingness of states to prosecute those who murder journalists and other advocates of civil liberties is lacking. CPJ’s global Impunity Index shows that hundreds of murder cases involving journalists remain unprosecuted and that more than a quarter of those killed were covering corruption. Threatened with harm, and unprotected by the authorities, many reporters have simply fled. The number of journalists in exile, whether from fear of persecution or imprisonment in Sri Lanka or Ethiopia, or fear of being killed in Syria or Somalia, is growing.

Despite some success stories in countries that have shaken off autocratic rule, the overall environment for critical journalism has not improved in recent years. Freedom House, the Washington foundation that promotes democracy, publishes a global press freedom index which, if averaged out, has flat-lined since the mid-1990s. The percentage of countries that Freedom House deems free dropped to 35 from 39 in the decade after 2000.

“Essentially the past decade or more has been a decade lost in terms of media freedom around the world,” said Kaufmann, the economist.

The reasons for the decline in press freedom and the rise in deaths and imprisonment of journalists are complex. It is an area that needs more rigorous academic analysis and better diagnostics, according to media development experts interviewed for this article.

Technology has enabled journalists and bloggers to self-publish, but authoritarian governments have quickly learned how to turn the same technology into a tool for censoring and tracking critical reporters. The cost of entry into the news business has been lowered to the point that anyone with a smartphone can be a reporter and publisher. This has dramatically increased the number of people who are able to report events, particularly in conflict zones and repressive environments, thereby increasing the number of reporters who get into trouble.

Journalists themselves and media development groups have pushed the United Nations to do more to protect reporters, starting in 2006 with the adoption of Security Council Resolution 1738, which underlined the civilian status of and protections due to reporters covering conflict. Since then, these groups have urged the UN to incorporate the protection of journalists into its broader work.

In May 2013, this bore fruit in the form of a U.N. Plan of Action on the Safety of Journalists and the Issue of Impunity. The plan calls for a new U.N. inter-agency mechanism to assess journalist safety, for greater powers for the U.N. special rapporteur on freedom of expression, and for assistance to member states in passing national legislation to prosecute the killers of journalists. It envisions partnerships between the UN and media safety groups along with global awareness campaigns. It also calls for development of emergency response procedures for journalists in the field and provisions for press safety in conflict zones.

But even this victory was hard won and shows the enormous obstacles that have to be overcome in a multinational body in which member states suspicious of an independent news media have influence. The adoption of the plan was in doubt for some time after Pakistan, India, and Brazil, all of which have long histories of high levels of violence against journalists, objected to certain provisions. After pressure from CPJ and others, Brazil relented and backed the plan.

Champions of freedom of expression are now girding for what will doubtless be a hard battle to shepherd the High-Level Panel’s press freedom goal through the political wrangling of the UN and into the final framework. The panel’s 12 goals and 54 related national targets are just one of several reports that will land on the desk of UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon by the end of 2014. He will synthesize them into one report, which will be the starting point for inter-governmental politicking that will culminate in a special September 2015 summit to agree on the final document.

“I don’t want to be too simplistic but, on the issue of press freedom, countries that oppose press freedom in their own country are going to be our main spoilers on this agenda,” a U.K. diplomat at the country’s UN mission in New York who follows the issue told CPJ.

Jan Lublinski, a research and development manager at DW Akademie, a media development agency affiliated with the German broadcaster Deutsche Welle, agrees. “It will not be easy to convince authoritarian regimes to commit to such an agenda,” he told CPJ.

Lublinski and his colleagues have already begun speculating on what form the framework could take. “It may be easier to define and agree upon a new set of development goals without explicit mention of freedom of expression, information rights and the media,” they wrote in a discussion paper. “But such a choice would also mean avoiding an answer to the challenges the world faces today. A new MDG”–Millennium Development Goals–”agenda that focuses on poverty, health, environment, gender equality, and education only, would neglect essential elements of the human rights as well as governance processes with all their potential influence on other development sectors.”

Kharas, the High-Level Panel report’s lead author, thinks it’s too early to speculate on the likely language of the final document. He suggests supporters not only argue for the effectiveness of press freedom as an instrument of economic development but also stress that freedom of expression is a basic human right as guaranteed by the UN’s own founding principles and enshrined in Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Guy Berger, director of UNESCO’s freedom of expression unit, echoes the human rights argument. “If press freedom is not ultimately recognized in the 2015 agenda, it would be a missed opportunity for a human-rights centered, richly rounded and practically effective understanding of development,” he told CPJ. “In fact, the recognition of the important role of free media in the report is much greater than that of the Internet and ICTs,” he said, referring to information and communications technologies. “By treating development as a human, not technology-driven, process, the issue of rights is inseparable from the concept of development.”

This point that press freedom is a basic human right sometimes gets lost in the diplomatic maneuvering and contortions over wording behind UN agreements, but it is one that journalists and their allies will need to make. “This is the time for advocacy,” the U.K. diplomat at the UN said. “I think that it is one of the more controversial components of this report and has absolutely no guarantee to get into the final framework. … If we want it in the final framework, we and other likeminded member states and civil society organizations are going to need to fight pretty forcefully for its inclusion.”

Whatever document is eventually drafted in New York, reporters like Umar Cheema will continue to probe the dark corners of Pakistani society, often with minimal resources and protection from the state, because that’s what reporters do.
“I still feel the power of truth, and it keeps me moving now. I try to be more and more objective, and when you are objective, half of your fear is gone,” he said, knowing that many courageous journalists have been silenced in recent years–for good.

Robert Mahoney is CPJ’s deputy director. He has worked as a reporter, editor, and bureau chief for Reuters throughout the world. Mahoney has led CPJ missions to global hot spots from Iraq to Sri Lanka.

Committee to Protect Journalists

Mr Razzak, 35, was a reporter for the Urdu-language newspaper Daily Tawar. His mutilated body was found in the city of Karachi last Wednesday. He had been reported missing since 24 March.

The Director-General of the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), Irina Bokova, called on Pakistani “to do all in their power” to investigate Razzak’s killings and shed light on this heinous crime.

The Nation

One of them later succumbed to his injuries. The other being treated at the district headquarters hospital, was said to be in critical condition.
No one has been arrested.

Police said Ahmed Ali Joiya, 25, had been working as a reporter for several local newspapers and magazines.

They said he had been working on a crime story and had been coordinating with the police in this regard.

They said his investigation had helped the police. Police said Joiya had reported receiving death threats from Maqbool alias Kooli Sassi, a wanted criminal, for reporting on the latter’s gang. Police said they had asked Joiya to be careful and inform them of any meetings with strangers.

They said on Friday, when Joiya went to a market in Bhangrana village, some unidentified men shot him, killing him on the spot.

Two street vendors- later identified as Muhammad Munir and Muhammad Hanif- were also hit. Hanif succumbed to his injuries on the way to the hospital, while Munir was reported to be in critical condition.

A complaint was registered with the Takht Mehal police.

Police said they suspected Maqbool to have killed Joiya. They said Maqbool was wanted in more than 150 murder, robbery and kidnappings across Punjab.

Punjab Police has set a Rs1 million head money on Maqbool.

Bahawalnagar District Police Officer Muntazir Mehdi said that initial investigation revealed that Maqbool was believed to be hiding in Sindh. He said a police team had been formed to arrest him and his accomplices.

Sajjad Wattoo, a colleague of the deceased Ahmed Ali JJoiya, told The Express Tribune that Joiya had mentioned the death threats to his colleagues.

Colleagues and some relatives of the slain journalist protested the murder. They demand that the criminals be arrested at the earliest.

They said the district police had provided him guards last year, but were taken away when the caretaker government took charge.

Joiya had been writing about crime and narcotics control, particularly smuggling from India. His stories had helped the police in several cases and had been awarded a prize by the regional police in 2012. He is survived by a wife and two children.

Source: The Express Tribune