Approaching the third anniversary of the murder of Saleem Shahzad, a Pakistani journalist killed as he investigated the murky relationship between the ISI and Al-Qaeda, little progress has been made with the investigation.

In many ways, Shahzad’s case signifies the challenge in Pakistan: brave journalists who face threats from non-state and state actors, and a system that is unable to provide them with the protection urgently required.

“Pakistani journalists are facing a conglomeration of threats and threats from so many different sides,” said Bob Dietz, coordinator of the Asia Program at the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), a nonprofit organization that promotes press freedom and defends the rights of journalists throughout the world.

At least 34 Pakistani journalists have been killed as a direct result of their work since 2008, when democracy was restored in the country, according to a recent report by Amnesty International titled “A Bullet Has Been Chosen for You.”

While journalists around the world usually face threats from a specific source, such increasingly authoritarian governments in Turkey and Egypt, journalists in Pakistan must overcome threats from both state and non-state actors.

One non-state threat facing Pakistani journalists throughout the country is militant organizations, including the Tehreek-i-Taliban.

“The Taliban have made their intention very clear, they want to dictate terms to the media at the point of a gun,” said Khurram Husain, a business and economy journalist in Pakistan who writes a column in Dawn, one of Pakistan’s leading English language newspapers.

Threats by militant organizations became an unfortunate reality for Raza Rumi, a columnist and TV anchor for Express News, when gunmen sprayed his car with bullets as he left work on the night of March 28 in Lahore.

While Rumi survived and has since fled to the United States for his own safety, he said his coverage of Shia and Ahmadis might have led to the attack, following the arrest of six people who are believed to be associated with the sectarian militant organization, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ).

The threat from militant groups has become so serious that it was brought up with Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif during a recent trip by CPJ to the country, according to Kati Marton, the organization’s board member and former chair.

She said the committee had reminded the prime minister that if peace talks with the Taliban continued, the issue of protection of journalists must be brought up.

“The issue will be taken up with the Taliban,” the prime minister told the CPJ delegation.

Non-state threats are not exclusively from militant organizations such as the LEJ and TTP, but also come from separatist in Balochistan as well, according to Dietz.

Since 2002, 79 journalists have been reported killed in Pakistan, a significant number of them at the hands of non-state actors, according to data provided by Pakistan Press Foundation (PPF), an independent non-governmental organization committed to promoting and defending freedom of expression.

However, another threat is posed by the state, and in particular the military.

“There is not a generalized fear, like there is with the Taliban, that you will be targeted if you talk about the army, but journalists in the past who have examined very closely the militant nexus with the armed forces have been targeted,” said Husain.

Reporting on the military in Pakistan is considered to be a “red line” and in order to remain safe, important issues are sometimes ignored by the media, according to Rumi.

While no one has been convicted for the abduction and murder of Saleem Shahzad, who had published a report on the relationship between the military and Al-Qaeda, the role of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) has once again come up in the Amnesty International report.

The report said that the ISI had a “tendency to send veiled threats against those who displeased them” such as journalists receiving anonymous calls and threats, or otherwise being intimidated.

Historically, the military establishment has not targeted high-profile journalists, but rather more vulnerable and small-town reporters, according to Michael Kugelman, senior program associate for South and Southeast Asia at the Woodrow Wilson Center.

Data collected by PPF and mapped show that most of the attacks on journalists have been outside the larger cities.

A Check on the Military

The media has acted as a check on the military, still the most powerful institution in the country, and has exposed its weaknesses, “making it seem less invincible,” Kugelman said.

Blaming the military and the ISI so openly would not have been possible in the late 1990s and early part of this century, when most of the news was disseminated through the state funded Pakistan Television (PTV), he added.

In many ways, press freedom and journalism in the country is paradox between a “quest for freedom of expression” and threats from “elements within the state and non-state actors,” according to Rumi.

“The media itself is emblematic of the democratization process in Pakistan in the sense that you’ve had a huge proliferation of private television channels over the last two years, they’re private and not controlled by the state, and they tend to be quite critical of the state,” Kugelman said.

The 2008 elections saw a return of democracy in the country and 2013 marked the first time a democratically elected government passed power to another democratically elected government, a process in which the media played a critical role.

“People, like Raza [Rumi], who risk their lives on an almost daily basis to cover events in Pakistan are what stand between a purely authoritarian government and an aspiring democracy,” said Marton.

Another silver lining from an otherwise ugly incident could be the lessons learned from the coverage of the attack on April 19 on Hamid Mir, a news anchor who hosts the popular political talk show Capital Talk on Geo TV.

Within hours of the attack on Mir, Geo TV, owned by the Jang group, flashed pictures of the Director General of ISI Lt. Gen. Zaheerul Islam accusing the ISI of the attack, without verifying the claims.

Soon after, the defense ministry filed a complaint with the nation’s media regulator, the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA).

“The telecast in question/campaign was aimed at undermining the integrity and tarnishing the image of state institutions and its officers and falsely linking it with the terrorist outfits/activities,” read the complaint.

While condemned by press freedom groups, the incident has brought the issue of sensationalist reporting to the front, and could create a standard for reporting news in a country where no code of ethics exists, said Saim Saeed, a sub-editor at The Express Tribune, an English language newspaper.

“Wouldn’t it be great if something emerged from this? Let’s go slower on this [making accusation], let’s have rules and regulation,” said Dietz.

“Take this period, it will be over soon, and use it as a learning lesson,” he said.

A recent letter of joint solidarity, signed by more than 70 high-level journalists, called on media owners to create a code of ethics that incorporate best practices on ethical journalism, reducing the risks that journalists face, according to Owais Aslam Ali, chairman of the Pakistan Press Foundation and one of the signatories.

Despite all these problems and the growing risks facing journalists in the country, Saeed is optimistic about the future of journalism in the country that is still in its infancy.

Saeed added that the power of news in Pakistan, a country where politics directly affects almost every citizen, gives journalists the ability to shape the public debate. For that reason, young people are still attracted to the profession, despite the risks.

To ensure that journalism and press freedom in the country develops, there is a need for “a public response, international response, and political pressure from within,” Dietz said.

The sentiment amongst some journalists and analysts is that pressure from the international community, in particular, may be the most effective tool.

“The prime minister understands that Pakistan’s global image has suffered because of the impunity [with which journalists are killed],” said Marton from CPJ.

What this means for everyday journalists, Marton added, is a more responsible media ownership culture, which might include training journalists and providing them with measures such as life insurance policies, a norm for reporters working in dangerous countries

What may ultimately decide the future of journalism in Pakistan however, is how the attacks and threats are handled, said Joel Simon, executive director for the Committee to Protect Journalists.

“The questions is, can Nawaz Sharif do anything about this [the threats]?” he said.

Idrees Ali is the Washington D.C. Correspondent for Pakistan Press International. Follow him on Twitter at @idreesali114.

The Diplomat

They were furious about the negative portrayal of those in the agency held responsible but oblivious to the growing concerns over threats to journalists from the intelligence agencies. Their debate was centered on the coverage of allegations against the responsible. Not a single segment, let alone complete programme, was devoted to a discussion of why journalists consider elements in the agencies a threat.

In a majority of the cases, the anchors were found hand-in-glove with the choice panelists. A dissenting voice would form part of the panel but only for the purpose of ‘flogging’ which was inevitable if one belonged to the Jang Group.

My personal experience was no different. One ‘patriotic’ anchor wanted my presence in his show but didn’t want to hear me. In a desperate attempt to make an issue out of nothing, he dismissed the Saleem Shahzad Commission report (demanding legislation for the intelligence agencies) on the grounds that it had wrongly alleged this correspondent of not recording his statement. (As a matter of fact, the then-PFUJ President Pervez Shaukat had conveyed my unwillingness to the commission to record the statement without even contacting me). I told the anchor that it was not the commission’s fault; our journalist representative fed them the wrong information about me but he was unconvinced and handed his own verdict that could discredit the commission report demanding laws for the agencies.

Another channel that invited me for a discussion on the issue censored when I demanded laws for the agencies and said that holding them accountable was the only way forward. The said channel also muted the voice of Kamran Shafi, who was a co-panelist. Even the conclusion of the talk show host, Absar Alam, was censored.

Air Marshal (retd) Shahid Latif regularly featured in the programmes on this subject. He would repeat two questions: (1) Why was the Jang Group against the defence organisations? (2) Why was it that journalists belonging to this group alone who felt threatened by the agency? I tried to answer his questions but it was a cry in the wilderness.

To his first question, I gave a personal example. I have been meeting Shahid Latif several times. He would discuss the issues relating to nepotism and lack of accountability in the defence organisations. Wasn’t he anti-Pakistan by that standard? He was not. Traitors are only those giving voice to the concerns raised by the likes of Shahid Latif.

What about Lt. Gen. (retd) Shahid Aziz who authored a book “Ye Khamoshi Kab Tak.” Any civilian author of such a book could have been termed a traitor, if not killed. Was Lt. Gen. (retd) Shuja Pasha wrong when he told the Abbottabad Commission that his agency had roughed up some ‘decent gentlemen’? Was it the right decision of Musharraf to tell the US channel, ABC TV, about the rogue elements within the agency?

His second question is equally important. Incidentally, he has been found raising this question during TV shows hosted by the channel which lost several employees to terrorism and the TTP had claimed responsibility for the attacks. Does it look good putting this question to the channel inquiring the reason for becoming a specific target of the TTP? By the way, an anchor of that channel had also echoed the same line taken by Shahid Latif. For their education, journalists of the Jang Group and other organisations are also facing similar threats from the agencies.

Rauf Klasra, a senior journalist, is not affiliated with the Jang Group. His recent column would make instructive reading for the likes of Shahid Latif. He should also ask Kamran Shafi, who is also a retired soldier, who had also blamed the agencies for firing at his home in 2010. Absar Alam is also not affiliated with the Jang Group. Azaz Syed was not with Geo TV when his house was attacked twice. Imtiaz Alam is yet another example. Saleem Shahzad is not alive to tell him why he had sensed danger and accused an agency of an attempt on his life. He was silenced through violence. Abdul Salam Soomro, a cameraman of a Sindhi TV channel who made the video of Sarfraz Shah who was gunned down by Sindh Rangers in Karachi, could also explain his threat concerns.

Let’s believe for a moment that Hamid Mir’s suspicion that an agency is involved is baseless. His vocal position on a number of issues earned him many enemies. It is quite likely that somebody else might have attacked him. However, the question remains as to why he considered the agency the main threat to his life.

Let’s suppose that my allegations about the agency’s involvement in my kidnapping and torture were wrong. But it will also have to kept in mind that my belief in this regard was strengthened with the passage of time. The more I interacted with informed persons the more they endorsed my view.

This perception among journalists regarding threats from the agency must be taken up as a challenge by the agency. Equally important is for the ‘patriotic’ anchors to take up this issue in their programmes. Among them are those who were harassed in the past, something they had been sharing. A debate about this negative perception is not going to malign the agency. It will herald a new era of trust with each other.

American journalist Tim Weiner’s book on the CIA — ‘Legacy of the Ashes’ — could not weaken the most powerful agency of the world; it was a litany of failure though. The book rather generated a new debate and triggered reforms making the agency stronger and better.

Note: This reporter and some other people were not allowed to speak. As the Jang Group is being incriminated, to educate people and give the reporter a full opportunity to be heard, it is necessary to publish this story. – Editorial Board

The News

On March 28, prominent columnist and television host Raza Rumi narrowly escaped an assassination attempt in Lahore after he left the office of Pakistan’s Express Media Group. His driver, Mohammad Mustafa, was killed and a guard was injured in the attack. Rumi hosts a show on Express’s Urdu-language channel and is a vocal critic of discrimination against religious minorities and Pakistan’s militant groups generally.

The attack on Rumi is the fifth such incident targeting employees or offices of the Express Media Group since August 2013. There have been a range of attacks — from three staffers being killed while sitting in a parked news van to the group’s bureau chief in Peshawar finding a bomb outside his house. The Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility for the former, stating that: “This is a war of ideologies and whosoever will oppose us in this war of ideologies, will play the role of enemy and we will also attack them.”

In a disconcerting development that has created a palatable sense of fear, a number of Pakistani journalists and editors are believed to be on a hit list of militants. Few know why they are being targeted, but the future looks bleak for the viability of an independent Pakistani press and the safety of journalists in the country.

In a column published after he survived the assassination attempt, Rumi wrote: “Pakistan’s journalists face the oddest of challenges. They are being coerced into silence or singing praises of extremists and advocating legitimacy for their operations. Pakistan’s politicians have almost given up, as their private and public statements are at variance and they have accepted that this ‘new Pakistan’ of fear, threats and unpunished violence is what they have to deal with.”

The threats to Pakistani journalists have increased over the years, and the offices of newspapers and television stations have been fortified with barbed wire, high walls, and security guards. But as the Taliban’s former spokesperson Ehsanullah Ehsan has said forebodingly: “If we can get inside military installations, media offices should not be too much of a challenge.”

The threat of physical harm is one that many journalists now live with in Pakistan, a country where reporting is already an incredibly difficult task. Censorship has long plagued the Pakistani press, and journalists have suffered for attempting to report the truth under military regimes and democratic governments. Ask any reporter in Pakistan if they have ever been threatened, and they’ll name everyone from politicians to Mafioso, who court and censure journalists in often equal measure.

Despite the oft-used cliché that a ‘vibrant press’ exists in Pakistan, journalists are routinely threatened and cautioned against reporting on ‘controversial’ issues. The list of journalists targeted for their work — from freelance journalist Hayatullah Khan, who was found dead after reporting on the CIA-run drone program, to Asia Times correspondent Saleem Shahzad, whose body was found in a canal after he privately expressed fears about the military establishment — grows longer every year. Self-censorship is now ingrained in many newsrooms, where taboo subjects range from political scandals and major business groups to the intelligence services.

But there is little outrage at threats to journalists and the press in Pakistan. In fact, raging against the press is almost a national pastime, with politicians and conspiracy theorists routinely making lurid allegations. This has fostered an environment where violence is seen as an almost legitimate course of action. Social media websites and popular discussion forums are flooded with allegations against journalists, from accusations that they are on the payroll of foreign spy agencies to calling them biased and unprofessional. In a leaked judicial commission report investigating the May 2, 2011 raid that killed Osama bin Laden, the former head of the Inter-Services Intelligence Ahmad Shuja Pasha claimed that Pakistani journalists were involved in a campaign against the agency, accusing them of being “heavily bribed with money, women and alcohol.”

There is no clear solution to protecting journalists in Pakistan. Recommendations for media safety guidelines have been drawn up several times but rarely acted on. There is little scope for media groups to work together — many refuse to name each other in print or in broadcast, even when attacks take place. But most importantly, the current sense of confusion in Pakistan — on what the government is negotiating with militant groups and what it is preparing to accede — has led to a state where journalists appear to be fair game in the war against militancy. The most one can hope for is that law enforcement agencies and the judiciary can act swiftly to investigate and prosecute those responsible for the attacks, and that media organizations can bolster security outside their offices. These steps, however, can only go so far if the enemy is just at the doorstep.

Despite this, Pakistan’s journalists have continued to work. A largely unacknowledged network of stringers, fixers, and freelancers has helped foreign news organizations and wire services cover the region. But the attack on Rumi is a reminder of the long-standing piece of advice routinely exchanged by Pakistani journalists — ‘cover the story, don’t become the story.’ That no longer appears to be an option.

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif recently made a set of commitments to the Committee to Protect Journalists, including that the protection of journalists would be a negotiating point in peace talks with the Taliban. But like its predecessors, the Sharif administration has abandoned the idea of protecting Pakistani citizens, let alone journalists, in its quest to appease militant groups. It would be foolishly optimistic to expect that the prime minister — or any other official — will be moved by the death of yet another innocent citizen.

Saba Imtiaz is a freelance journalist based in Karachi and a Carnegie Fellow at the New America Foundation. She is the author of Karachi, You’re Killing Me! (Random House India, 2014) and No Team of Angels (First Draft Publishing, forthcoming.) She tweets at @Saba_Imtiaz and can be contacted at saba.imtiaz@gmail.com

Daily Times

One of the reasons Pakistan regularly features at or near the top of such lists is, ironically, a result of the freedom the country’s media has gained over the last decade. Unlike in many other countries and conflict zones, Pakistani journalists might be harassed by the authorities but are rarely directly disallowed from reaching and covering dangerous areas and incidents. The flipside, of course, is that they pay for this freedom by laying down their lives. But the answer is not to limit their movement.
Instead, it lies in devising and implementing a set of policies aimed specifically at protecting journalists and punishing those who kill them.

On that front the state and media organisations have abdicated their responsibility to the men and women who take on the task of keeping citizens informed. The effort made to investigate Daniel Pearl’s execution has not been replicated for any Pakistani journalist. In the rare case where a journalist’s death attracts widespread attention, no clear conclusions are reached; the report on Saleem Shahzad’s murder, for example, simply states the obvious — that the culprits could have been intelligence agencies or Islamist extremists. In a particularly chilling example of the impunity with which those killing journalists get away with their crimes, all six witnesses to the murder of Wali Khan Babar have also been killed. Pakistan’s journalists are increasingly falling victim to the overt and covert conflict between extremists, separatists and political actors on the one hand and security and intelligence agencies on the other. If the state isn’t willing to prevent this from happening, media organisations will simply have to find a way to pressure it to do so, because the worst outcome would be if the media had to reverse the strides it has made by curbing its reporting.

Pakistan Press Foundation