Geo and Jang Group have repeatedly issued statements that they have the highest regard for all institutions. Despite the fact that Hamid Mir was hundred percent convinced that he will be attacked, the channel only aired the news after he was attacked informing the people what the assessment of Hamid Mir was without giving a final judgment as to who carried out the attack.

Was Hamid Mir the only one to point out some problems or some rogue elements within the ISI? No. There are many from within the armed forces, even former DG ISI Lt Gen Ahmad Shuja Pasha and many retired officers including former COAS Gen (retd) Pervez Musharraf, who clearly hinted at grave problems within the intelligence outfit. Many experts have termed such revelations as “ISI within ISI” and analysed that apparently these “rogue” elements are stronger and influential.

It is also an important point that politicians, bureaucrats, and everyone is attacked and criticised for anything but few people consider generals as “sacred cow”, over and above any criticism despite the fact that they are involved in violence against innocent citizens. Reports of judicial commissions establish the involvement of ISI elements in such violent activities. The biggest office of the state is the office of the president and even it is never spared from criticism.

It was Ahmad Shuja Pasha who at the time of his appearance before the Abbottabad Commission confessed that “ISI had brutalised many decent people”. However, Pasha had added, “ISI mindset, culture and methodology were changing.” Before this Abbottabad Commission, Pasha slammed former army chief Gen (retd) Pervez Musharraf for bowing down to the Americans.

Pasha had disclosed that Musharraf had caved in to the US so promptly that the Shamsi airbase was given to them for drone strikes in Pakistan. Pasha was made to confess before the Abbottabad Commission that the Abbottabad incident was the result of lack of capacity, inadequate knowledge and wrong attitude. Pasha had even admitted of enforced disappearances, notwithstanding the fact the ISI had no detention powers.

While many in the media are trying to unnecessarily defend the ISI and are not ready to admit that correct criticism will help the institution improve, Pasha’s statement endorses report of the Umar Cheema Commission that the agency remained involved in terrible things like kidnappings and torturing citizens.

When Pasha said so, it was not treason but when Hamid Mir said the same on the basis of credible information, it is treason despite the fact that he is admitted in hospital after sustaining six bullets and is unable to walk.

Gen (retd) Musharraf in his 2011 interview with ABC in USA said, “It is possible that rogue members of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and the military knew of Osama bin Laden’s hideout in Abbottabad.

“As a policy, the army and the ISI are fighting terrorism and extremism, al Qaeda and the Taliban. But rogue elements within are a possibility.“As I said, at the lower level, somebody (could be) following a policy of his own and violating the policy from above is a possibility.”

Top army officials have admitted that when Musharraf was attacked twice, some ISI officials were involved. But it was not treason as though it was hundred percent proved and these incidents killed many individuals.

These statements proved the existence of rogue elements within the ISI and pointing out this fact would have helped the ISI improve and cleanse its ranks of such elements.Former minister of state for religious affairs Dr Amir Liaquat Hussain stated on May 5, 2005 that then President Musharraf had faced threats from within. He had elaborated that some elements from within the institutions could attack to kill the former army chief. But it was not treason though the role of ISI “individuals” was clearly pointed out.

If there are rogue elements within the ISI or any other institution, they could be mentioned, criticised and blamed. There are no holy cows which could never be touched even if found involved in illegal activities or highhandedness against innocent civilian citizens. When any official of such a disciplined institute is involved in any such activity, the head of the organisation is always blamed as it is incomprehensible that he is not in the picture. A senior journalist, during a private meeting, tried to inquire from Pasha about the involvement of his agency’s officials in kidnapping and torturing Umar Cheema. Pasha was unable to deny but failed to deliver a direct response.

The Judicial Commission has concluded that the role of agencies in the Umar Cheema case was eminent.Keeping aside Pakistan, any wrongdoings of intelligence agencies are highlighted, questioned and criticised in civilised world by professional journalists. In the USA, the American media exposed CIA’s many wrongdoings, including the worst i.e. desecration of Holy Quran in Guantanamo Bay. Majority of the US people who have respect and dignity get united against the American government and elite intelligence agency CIA and get many wrongs reversed.

However, in Pakistan Hamid Mir’s own friends in the media are letting him down, so discussing his opponents is not important. Even in India, the independent Indian media used to expose scandals against its own army and a shameful scandal was reported about the Indian Army chief in recent years. All this brought improvements in those institutions of India. But all this is treason here in Pakistan and consequently the situation and professional excellence of security institutions is also not hidden from anyone.

Not only top army officials made such allegations against the ISI with all proofs and certainty but even top politicians did so but that was never treason. Pakistan’s present interior minister and the then leader of the opposition Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan made speeches taking the name of DG ISI and alleging him of involvement in illegal and unconstitutional activities. In his interview with Hamid Mir in Capital Talk, Nisar has even said that DG ISI Ahmad Shuja Pasha was making and strengthening a political party – PTI. He never gave any evidence but that was not treason. Today Nisar says he has never seen anyone making allegation this way in the entire world.

The News

‘Patriotic’ pundits flock to the talk show studios of the TV stations channelled around Aabpara to condemn the coverage that flashed on the screen the picture of the DG ISI, as has been accused by the victim journalist’s family.

Pointing fingers at the ISI chief has been treated as an attack on the ISI that, they say, resulted in the agency’s defamation at a global level. A number of anchorpersons playing up the issue are more interested in raising questions than getting answers.

In many cases, their ignorance was on blatant display. In the lines below, I will attempt to address these questions.Question 1: Why were the allegations hurled at the ISI chief with indecent haste as Geo TV could have waited for Hamid Mir to regain consciousness and make his statement?

Answer: Allegations levelled by Amir Mir were based on a recorded statement that Hamid Mir handed to his family and friends for its release in case of any attempt on his life. The allegations might have surprised many viewers but the fact remains that the victim had shared his concerns with many of his friends and colleagues. Needless to mention that neither the family traumatised by this tragic incident was ready to wait nor were his colleagues. They had planned to lodge a protest and approach other channels in case Geo TV refused to air the tape. It took a couple of hours to decide before airing the statement. Question 2: Did Hamid Mir inform his top management about these threats and the likely perpetrators?

Answer: Yes, he had conveyed in writing to the management that decided not to make it public unless the situation demanded so. His email on February 25, 2014 (2:15pm) to Geo TV management said all about that Amir Mir disclosed on Geo TV attributing it as statement of Hamid Mir. Other than learning through Hamid Mir, the management was aware of the precarious situation through the threatening messages received from other quarters about the victim journalist in the past.

Question 3: Will the emails be made public?

Answer: They will be presented as evidence to support the allegations before the judicial commission .

Question 4: Was Hamid Mir the only person from Geo TV facing threats?

Answer: Many others are also under threat. Included among them Question 5: Isn’t it unfair to accuse ISI chief without any solid evidence?

Answer: All Pakistanis respect the national security institutions and their sensitivity is kept in mind. That said the individuals working for the agencies were not immune from criminal investigation by any legal standard. Also the fact remains that investigation into a crime starts from the suspicion. The first question asked by the police to victim side is: who do you suspect? The purpose is to get to the culprits. .

Question 6: What if ISI chief’s involvement is not established?

Answer: That will be good news and remove dust of suspicions. It is rather a golden opportunity for ISI to come out clean by offering able assistance to the investigators in getting to the culprits given the capability and a lot of resources at its disposal. The ISI and MI had successfully done this job after the assassination attempt on former President Gen Pervez Musharraf. They apprehended the rogue elements within the forces that were hands in glove with the militant organisations in this killing plot.

Question 7: Was it fair to flash repeatedly the photo of ISI chief on Geo TV?

Answer: Let me ask a counter question. Don’t media flash pictures when some other noted figures are held accused in any case?

There is no news on TV carried either without graphics or pictures. The picture shown was not the only photo of ISI chief available. Several were about the ISI headquarters and others related to the agency. Since ISI chief was being accused, not the agency overall, hence only his picture was flashed.

Moreover it is recognized legal right of the family of any victim of an attack to name suspects.

Hamid Mir had also conveyed this to some of his friends and investigative agencies are senior journalists of the Group and complaint in this regard was lodged with the government and its institutions.

ISI chief has to face the judicial commission now

On different occasions when allegations were leveled against the then COAS Musharraf, the then ISI chief Shuja Pasha, Premier Nawaz Sharif, Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif, former President Asif Ali Zardari, PTI chief Imran Khan, former PM Yusuf Raza Gilani and former PM Raja Peraiz Ashraf, the pictures of all these leaders were shown along with the allegations repeatedly by electronic media. When Benazir Bhutto accused the then President Musharraf, the then IB chief Brigadier Ijaz and the then Punjab CM Pervaiz Ilahi of conspiring to murder her, the pictures of all them were repeatedly shown by the electronic media. When the PML-N had accused the then ISI chief Shuja Pasha of backing Imran Khan and demanded his resignation, the PML-N demand and accusation along with Pasha’s picture were repeatedly shown on the electronic media.

Moreover, when reports about any blast, price hike, power outages, accident, police action against protesters and any unjustice with masses are aired, related pictures are also repeatedly shown on TV screens.

This should not be considered as a conspiracy. If pattern and behaviour of electronic media is properly understood, question of any conspiracy won’t come into mind. Is it not a fact that if any journalist is killed, the scene of the incident is shown repeatedly. The electronic media did not spare Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhary before he retired as chief justice. The allegations on sitting judges were also aired by the media.

Thousands of channels in India, US and UK enjoy maximum freedom. If it is complained in Pakistan that agency chief’s coverage was wrong, then the coverage of the issues related to civilians is also wrong. The electronic media airs beepers and holds talk shows in accordance with the importance of the issue. The similar pattern was adopted on this issue.

Question 8: Why is there such hue and cry over coverage of this issue?

Because in our country there is a concept of sacred cow and untouchables about the very powerful. Allegations have been leveled in the past also but this time they came with a bang. Or perhaps because Jang Group is the biggest media group the issue had generate so much hue and cry.

Whatever is highlighted in this context is done in accordance with the constitution and law. Those who are leveling criticism they will soon know that the coverage of this incident was in accordance with constitution and law. The coverage was meant to uphold supremacy of constitution, freedom of press and rule of law. Media gurus know that this box (TV) in the world has its own dynamics and it continues to earn its independence.

It should be noted that Jang Group alone and also along with journalists had moved courts and Supreme Court with the pray to regulate media. Hamid Mir and Absar Alim, who remained with the Jang Group, had also moved court in this regard. But this is unfortunate that courts have not moved fast, nor the government had paid attention to it.

Jang Group had also been asking the government to regulate media. This is Jang Group’s official stand. The prime minister and information minister are witness to it.

Question 9: Did Geo TV take version of ISI?

Answer: As the allegations levelled by Amir Mir were aired, it followed a clarification from the ISPR. Where ISI chief’s picture was flashed together with the allegations raised against him, there was ISPR clarification run with the picture of DG ISPR Maj Gen Asim Saleem Bajwa.

Question 10: Did ISI or ISPR complain to Geo over running the picture?

Answer: Neither of them contacted the management hence no objection was raised. Carrying the news and dropping it later on was the sole decision of Geo TV without any external intervention. This issue was only raised through opinion-makers aligned with national security agencies.

Question 11: Why ISI chief was asked to resign?

Answer: This demand was not made by the organization. This was the stand of one of the senior most journalists of the Jang Group who is among the most credible newsmen of the country. The opposite view of his stand from within and outside the Group was also aired

The News

During the past few weeks, a sustained campaign has started where journalists are being threatened, harassed and attacked.

However, Pakistani journalists are not alien to attacks as since 2000, according to some reports, more than 100 journalists have sacrificed their lives in the line of duty while several others were attacked, tortured and threatened, but all such incidents could not stop the journalists from bringing the truth before the general public.

Unfortunately, the attackers/killers of journalists roam Scot free as not even a single case has reached its logical conclusion.

Of late, senior journalist Raza Rumi was attacked in Lahore in which his driver was killed. Recently, Editor Investigation, The News Ansar Abbasi, and senior journalist Ahmad Noorani received threats through various means and now Hamid Mir has been attacked.

Earlier Najam Sethi of Geo had also received several threats.

Apart from his bravery, Hamid Mir is known for his support of journalist community irrespective of the organisations they work for.

Whether it was attack on Raza Rumi or threats to Ansar Abbasi and Ahmad Noorani or the issue of journalist Jamal Tarkai, who was forced to leave Balochistan or the issue of Umar Cheema, The News journalist who was abducted, harassed and tortured in the federal capital, Hamid Mir was the loudest voice of protest on killing of Geo’s reporter Musa Khankhel Shaheed from Swat.

Not only this, the murder of Geo’s reporter Wali Khan Babar also got unprecedented coverage in Capital Talk, the television programme Hamid Mir hosts. Hamid Mir was also the frontrunner in protesting against the murder of Saleem Shahzad. It was Hamid Mir, who appeared in every protest for freedom of press and always lent his shoulders to support the journalist community. Just to quote one incident, Hamid Mir volunteered himself to appear before the judicial commission formed on National Insurance Company Limited scam in which ex-Interior Minister Rehman Malik pushed five journalists to reveal their sources, and it was because of Hamid Mir that the journalist community won a historic case and the judicial commission handed down verdict that journalists cannot be compelled to reveal their sources even in the witness box of the court.

The state of journalism in Pakistan could easily be judged from the fact that in 2013 alone, at least eleven journalists were killed while on duty. Similarly, each year around a dozen journalists sacrifice their lives which makes Pakistan the most difficult country for journalism but on the other hand, such sacrifices also blow a new zeal among the working journalists that they could not be killed but not silenced.

Hamid Mir has been supporting the Pakistan Army and its intelligence agencies for their successes, but he also has been critic of army’s political meddling. He has been highlighting the negative role of Pakistan’s military establishment in ruining the political system of the country and has been very local on the issue of missing persons especially from Balochistan which,

by no means, makes him an enemy of the State of Pakistan.

The problem with Hamid Mir is that he cannot remain silent on negative role of intelligence agencies that is why he was threatened by a few elements in the agencies which he conveyed to his friends and family.

The attackers of Hamid Mir should keep it in mind that the issue never settles by silencing the messenger but by understanding the message.

Since Pakistan’s birth, there have remained Hamid Mirs in media who would never bow before the wrongs and this legacy continues.

“Hamid Mir had strongly protested against attacks on Saleem Shehzad, Umar Cheema, Raza Rumi, Wali Babar, Musa Khankhel and threats to Sethi, Abbasi, Noorani and others”

The News

What you do not see in Pakistan is a lot of hard-core investigative reporting, based on detailed analysis of public and private data. I raised this issue in a blog on Ayesha Haroon, a highly regarded editor who died in February 2013. “She was frank in her assessment of Pakistani journalism and the propensity for senior journalists to rely on favored sources to deliver analysis rather than dig for facts. It was an uphill battle, she said, to get younger reporters to go to sources for hard facts, rather than resort to their speed dials to plug in quick quotes,” I wrote.

One of Haroon’s proteges is Umar Cheema, who made the transition from mostly political and security reporting for The News to genuine investigative reporting. The change came after his abduction and sadistic attack in 2010 by what he says were members of Pakistan’s intelligence community. The attack prompted Cheema, a winner of CPJ’s 2011 International Press Freedom Awards, to reflect on his role as a journalist. Eventually, he launched the Center for Investigative Reporting in Pakistan (CIRP), which has focused on detailed analyses of tax records and who, among the rich, famous, and politically well-connected, has not been paying their taxes. It turns out that’s just about every one of these people.

CIRP’s work was so effective that the government just released its list of people and organizations which actually exist on Pakistan’s official tax list and how much they have paid. With The Citizens Tax Directory now online, Pakistan becomes only the fourth country in the world to do this, Cheema told me in an email. The directory contains records of all those registered with tax authorities, companies and individuals, no matter if they have paid taxes or not.

This is more than a shaming exercise as some news reports have claimed. The International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) most recent loan to Pakistan came to about $6.7 billion, and the country survives on its cash inflows to fill the huge gaps left by the unpaid taxes of most of its citizens and corporations. The IMF says an improvement in that record is part of its loan conditions being fulfilled. A more comprehensive look can be found in Sheila Coronel’s explainer on the Global Investigative Journalism website, Reporting that Makes an Impact? Some Answers from Pakistan. (Full disclosure: Coronel, who is academic dean at Columbia University’s journalism school, is a member of CPJ’s board of directors.) Also, the Washington-based Tax Notes International did a 3500-word report on CIRP’s series.

While I was in Islamabad on a very rainy day in March this year, Cheema took me to lunch. He told me of his zeal for what he is doing. He calls himself a “social change entrepreneur,” a role in which he says feels increasingly comfortable. He was frank in describing the risks his work involves in taking on the country’s ruling class. Like many other Pakistani journalists, the threat level he lives with is significant. And he told me he is trying to find long-term funding for CIRP that will not compromise its institutional integrity. I had only a few ideas, which he is weighing. CIRP is important because of its investigations into tax evasion in Pakistan. But it is even more important because it shows what a well-intentioned, determined, and diligent reporter can accomplish, largely on his own, by practicing basic journalism.

Committee to Protect Journalists

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