ISLAMABAD: Minister for Information, Broadcasting and National Heritage Senator Pervaiz Rashid Tuesday said that the journalists and security forces had made great sacrifices in the fight against terrorism by laying down their lives.

Addressing the participants of a journalists organizations’ sit-in here in front of the Parliament House, he said without the sacrifices of security forces, journalists and media workers the year 2015 could not had been made safer than the year 2013.

He said Operation Zarb-e-Azb was enjoying the support of media too. The war against terrorism was being fought with the power of pen and gun. Their enemy is common and the war would continue till complete elimination of terrorism. Attacking any media person or law enforcer amounts to attacking all of them.
Peace in the country was impossible without complete elimination of terrorism, he said

Media, he said was the fourth pillar of the state. Attacking journalists is tantamount to attacking the entire state, he added.
Prime Minister Muhammad Nawaz Sharif immediately after assumption of his office, underlined that elimination of terrorism was his top priority. The Prime Minister and Chief of Army Staff had also acknowledged the sacrifices of journalists in war against terrorism.

The National Action Plan (NAP), Zarb-e-Azb, media and every institution was playing its role in elimination of terrorism, he said.

Pervaiz said the state was duty bound to provide safe and secure environment to media persons in performance of their duty.

He said people should strongly condemn terror incidents in their respective areas and take out huge rallies to disseminate strong message to terrorists that nobody liked such abhorable acts.

He agreed with the suggestion that a special compensation package should also be announced for the martyred journalists in line with martyrs of security forces.
The government would announce special package for journalists in consultation with all stakeholders, he added.

He said the services of special prosecutors would be provided to journalists for pleading the cases of martyred journalists. The government is determined to completely eliminate the menace of terrorism, he added.

A committee headed by Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan had also been formed for the security of media houses, he said.

A meeting would soon be held in consultation with stakeholders concerned to review security arrangements. The provinces had also been asked to beef up security of media houses.

Business Recorder

The message is headlined, “The Global war of ideologies and the behavior of media: To the heads and members of the organizations working for the rights of media members around the world” and lays out the TTP’s anger with Pakistani media coverage of the military’s anti-insurgency campaign in Waziristan, ongoing since early June.

The campaign is known as Zarb-e-Azb, which translates into “strike of the Prophet’s sword,” and the army calls it a “comprehensive operation.” The offensive is bloody, as will be the case when military forces go into civilian areas to root out insurgents. There has been a fairly high death count, lots of destruction of homes, and a large number of displaced civilians. The proverb “When elephants fight, it is the grass that gets trampled,” is especially true in this conflict.

Not for the first time, Pakistan’s military has made independent media coverage of the fighting extremely difficult, though not impossible. Because of the restricted coverage, the TTP is accusing the Pakistani media of betraying its journalistic mission by behaving “towards us in this battle in such a way that is even against its own principles. To spread false and baseless news, make propaganda against us on behalf of our enemies and playing the role of war propagandists,” the Taliban considers to be “irresponsible, thoughtless and criminal behavior.”

My interpretation is that the TTP is losing the media battle to present its side of the conflict, and is not pleased with the situation. Given that the fighting doesn’t look to end any time soon, and the government is dominating the news flow from the battlefield, the TTP is threatening to take its frustrations out on Pakistani journalists in an attempt to reverse the information war it is losing.

The threat to us, and Reporters Without Borders and our other sister groups, is not as menacing as the threat directed toward journalists in the TTP’s message. It seems to signal that there will be more attacks on the media, most likely in the near future: “This message is aimed at making you aware that if we get engaged in attacking them [the media] then no crying and sobbing will be heard and we think accomplishing our legitimate and decent mission without attending to criticism of any criticizer is our appropriate right.” In other words, media support groups like CPJ shouldn’t start complaining when the TTP starts attacking journalists. The apparent threat to us and our international colleagues seems clearest with the statement, “We want to remind you that we always remember our enemies.” We should not criticize the TTP by “crying and sobbing,” that is to say, by doing our job of supporting Pakistani journalists.

The TTP has always been media savvy, if not always media friendly. Their spokesmen are readily available and return calls quickly, and the groups maintain websites and social media accounts for both publicizing their victory claims and recruiting. This sort of message is not unlike them.

For their part, Pakistani journalists have long been under pressure from every group with a political or criminal agenda in the country–the military and intelligence agencies, the many militant groups (including the TTP), political parties, local strongmen, and criminal thugs. We have written about how journalists are under constant threat no matter what their political slant, and how they can be harassed, abducted, beaten, and killed with near-perfect impunity.

So as a service to our Pakistani colleagues in the media we will pass along this latest threat, one in a steady never-ending stream of threats, from a group with the power to wreak real mayhem and murder. For almost all of colleagues, it’s not the first time they will be threatened. And just as journalists in Pakistan will keep doing their jobs, CPJ will keep on publicizing the attacks on them from any quarter, drawing attention to the increasingly unstable situation in which they find themselves.

Committee to Protect Journalists