Regime Clamps Down on the Press Yet Again

According to BBC Aaj TV and Geo are currently the most popular news channels in Pakistan. Having largely muzzled Geo TV, the regime Media authority PEMRA is now whacking Aaj with its customary big stick

Dawn reported this morning that Aaj TV is once more under the gun “for airing news, talk shows and other programmes on the current judicial crisis”.

Pemra has also warned all private TV channels not to air programmes casting aspersions on the judiciary and “integrity of the armed forces of Pakistan,” besides contents which were likely to encourage and incite violence or contained anything against maintenance of law and order or which promoted anti-national or anti-state attitudes

Thanks to Reuters this piece of news has been given a wide coverage in the international press:

Aaj Television described the show-cause notice served on it by Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA) as an "assault on freedom of press".

The notice said Aaj, which means Today, had violated an order of the Supreme Judicial Council, which is hearing a case against suspended Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry, by telecasting news, talkshows and other programmes on the sub-judice case.

The notice, signed by a serving senior police officer inducted into PEMRA, said the media watchdog could cancel the channel's short term uplinking license if it failed to respond within three days.

Syed Talat Hussain, Aaj Television's director news and current affairs, accused the Government of pressurising his channel "to take the chief justice case off air completely".

"Everything is facade in this country. Democracy is a facade, judicial independence is a facade, and today we discovered that press freedom is a facade," Mr Hussain said.

PEMRA's spokesman, Mohammad Saleem, said the action was legal.

"It has nothing to do with freedom of expression. We did what regulatory bodies all over the world have been doing," he said.

What a load of rubbish!

Imagine claiming that they are only doing what “regulatory bodies all over the world have been doing”. Could someone ask these goons to name any other similar regulatory authority that has ‘a serving senior police officer’ issuing such draconian notices to the press? (Okay, Burma, Zimbabwe and North Korea excepted).

I enjoy watching Talat Hussain. He seems to a better job than most of his rivals put together. All power to Aaj TV and him!

Press Censorship

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Press Freedom

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'Real Democracy' vs. 'Sham Democracy'

Ghani Jafar tells us an interesting tale in The News today ('Deja vu, but vicariously')

Apparently in the early 1990s (during the days of ‘Sham Democracy’) our Amir-ul-Momineen-hopeful and his boys decided to get tough with media men for revealing too much truth for their liking.

It was decided to make a harsh example of a particular senior journalist so that others would tremble in fear from this brutal lesson. And so:

A minor traffic incident was staged to enable the cops to beat him black and blue, wreck the car he was driving and put him behind bars He was treated to third degree methods overnight before his colleagues learnt of the incident and managed to get him out.

As common with most plans made by ‘geniuses’ entrenched in Islamabad, the scheme backfired. The press was up in arms at the brutal treatment dish out their colleague. To appease them two policemen were suspended.

Later it emerged that:

The senior superintendent of police had addressed the entire staff of the relevant station. The high police official had basically patted his subordinates on the back for doing a good job in dealing with the journalist. But, he said that since the matter had taken a political turn…he needed two volunteers for suspension. Those who offered themselves for the purpose, he had assured the audience, would not only be reinstated but also given promotions once the heat died down.

Coming to the present, things do not appeared have changed much in these days of ‘True Democracy’.

After trashing the Geo office the Inspector in charge of the destruction, as Musharraf informed us, has managed to successfully vanish from the face of the earth.

Considering that the Inspector is held single-handedly responsible for the attack on Geo, is it possible that he might have – given his ‘violent outlook’ - decamped to Dera Bugti or Wana to lead a dogged insurgency against Geo TV?

Or, as Ghani Jafar suggests, that he currently might be instead ensconced somewhere in Islamabad awaiting swift promotion the moment the heat dies down?

The answer, my friends, is blowing in the wind!

Pakistan

Geo TV

Media Buzz

There was a buzz among the journalistic community about how Musharraf got on the Geo programme “Aaj Kamran Khan Key Sath” a week after having it banned.

The story goes that the Commando General (along with a handful of powerful subordinates) reportedly subjected the boss of Geo/Jang Group to 2 ½ hour verbal battering via conference telephone, after which the gentleman is rumoured to have emerged a sweating, gibbering wreck.

And so, shortly afterwards, on 19th March Musharraf got his moment on Kamran Khan’s TV show. It is widely believed that Kamran Khan was under severe editorial limitations as to what he could ask Musharraf and what he could not. Taking this view into account, it not surprising that the interview turned into a voluble Musharraf talk fest.

The interview highlights include the following:

Musharraf insisted that Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry had not been summoned on March 9 – the day the general supposedly sent a reference against him to the Supreme Judicial Council – saying: “He actually called on me.

Musharraf also said that had been dressed in his army uniform because he was at work – “Should I have been in a sports kit?”, he asked.

The General also revealed that Sharifuddin Pirzada was the first person to complain against the chief justice, saying: “He advised us on the constitutional and legal aspects of the reference. He has offered a technical excuse on why he cannot represent the state against the chief justice in the SJC. But he is part of the game”.

To your Blogger his use of the word “game” for the manner in which the chief justice had been suspended was highly revealing.


The next day Dawn rightly panned the show in a front page article titled "Not very convincing, Mr President". The newspaper accused the General of being glib, evasive and unconvincing, but then the newspaper made the mistake of criticising the already harassed Kamran Khan with the comment:

Many fundamental questions were left unanswered and, more crucially, unasked in the TV interview

In retaliation Kamran Khan sent a sharp emailed rejoinder to Dawn’s Editor Abbas Nasir criticising the newspaper’s front page interview of Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry. This email was widely disseminated among the journalistic community (and through further distribution a copy managed to reach even your Blogger today.)

My humble advice to these two senior journalists is to kindly lay down their swords. Unity among senior members of the press is a must in present conditions.
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Vanity of Vanities

Some weeks ago I chanced upon a senior member of PTV who made a very interesting admission.

Actually the confession came as a result of some polite teasing on my part about PTV News and how it was largely a Mush & Shortcut show.

The PTV senior staffer then revealed to me how closely Shaukat Aziz monitored his appearances on PTV News.

Aziz, it seems, regularly contacts PTV complaining about mundane trivialities like ‘Why didn’t the cameraman point out to me that my tie knot was slightly askew?’ or ‘Why did they shoot me with the lights at an incorrect angle?’ I gather he even lets them know if the any tickertape news about him at the bottom of the screen needs minor editing.

All I could say was, ‘Wow!’

I suppose it is a reflection of how much time Shaukat Aziz has on his hands in between cutting ribbons and his overseas jaunts.

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Kamran Khan
Shaukat Aziz

Daily Dawn comes of Age?

The blame for the over fifty year long, chronological abuse of the press in Pakistan can be quite properly laid at the autocratic attitude commonly found in Pakistani leadership – be it civilian, military or bureaucratic.

However, one cannot completely absolve the press itself for its historical subservience to Islamabad. The blame for this lies squarely on the press owners - such as Mehmood Haroon, Khalil-ur-Rahman, Majid Nizami et al - for placing self-interest and financial profit before the principle of press freedom. All of these gentlemen have had ingratiatingly close connections with various despotic governments over the years. For instance Dawn's Mehmood Haroon happily served as Interior Minister and Governor of Sindh under the military dictator Zia, Nawa-i-Waqt's Majid Nizami was exceedingly close with the Sharif family (while it was trampling on the press and arresting the likes of Najam Sethi) and Jang's Khalil-ur-Rahman remained thick with many a dictator.

Coming back to Dawn, a senior member of its editorial staff (M Ziauddin) took his own newspaper to task not so long ago by saying:

The Dawn survived decades of military dictatorships basically because it shamelessly toed the government line. Ziauddin recalls printing verbatim government press releases and letting the censor board remove entire pages.

So it comes as a pleasant surprise that Dawn has finally come out of its dusty closet and decided to take on a military dictatorship.

I wonder how much of this is due to the efforts of Zafar Abbas, the ex-BBC Urdu correspondent and recently appointed Islamabad editor for the paper?



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dawn karachi

Dilawar Khan Set Free

The BBC journalist, a bruised and shaken Dilawar Khan Wazir, was released last evening by his abductors. During his captivity he was kept blindfolded, beaten regularly and ‘repeatedly questioned about his work in the tribal areas and his sources of information’.

Without seeming to sound heartless, I do consider Dilawar Khan Wazir to be an extremely fortunate man. To my mind if his kidnapping had not resulted in the public uproar, created by concerned members of his journalist community, he would have still be in the brutal hands of his captors.

Here are some of things that took place within hours of his abduction:

• Local journalists announced a complete boycott of parliamentary proceedings and threatened public protest.


• International media organizations – such as CPJ and RWF – began badgering the harrassed Islamabad government.


• BBC Urdu Service insisted on carrying the story of their missing colleague as the lead story for two days (until his release).


• BBC World Service Director Nigel Chapman publicly called on the Pakistani government to ascertain Dilawar Khan’s whereabouts.

All the tongue tied Interior Minister, Aftab Ahmed Sherpao, could do was announce:

"I am not in a position to confirm whether or not he is in government custody."

In the end, pressurized by journalists the minister reportedly resorted to angrily banging down the phone on them.

Undeniably it was the blaze of local and international publicity (but hardly a word, by the way, in all the heavily controlled TV News channels) that forced Dilawar Khan Wazir’s abductors to release him.

The last comment on the release ought to belong to Interior Minister Aftab Ahmed Khan:

The minister was reluctant to give details about the ‘kidnappers’ who had picked up the journalist from Pirwadhai, a busy public place in Islamabad on Monday.“Do not ask more specific questions,” the minister said while replying to a question about the identity of the kidnappers.

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This morning’s Dawn editorial had this to say:

…the circumstances in which [Dilawar Khan Wazir] vanished and the manner in which an attempt was made to mislead his brother deepens the suspicion that this was more than a simple case of kidnapping for ransom or personal vendetta. A series of mishaps that befell the missing journalist’s family in the last few months also confirms the fear that Mr Wazir had been put on the hit list for his professional work which evidently has aroused the ire of some agencies or groups. This is a direct attack on press freedom in Pakistan.

Wishing to suppress information that journalists like Mr Wazir have been unearthing and disseminating through their media outlets, dictatorial governments with many skeletons to hide in their cupboard have taken to harassing and persecuting media persons — four have been mysteriously murdered since 2005 in Pakistan. Obviously, these journalists were not guilty of any infringement of the law for in that case they could have been put on trial. In the absence of that option, the powers that be or their underlings have made it more convenient to resort to the arbitrary tactic of picking up journalists — as well as others who are personae non gratae for any reason — in complete disregard of legal processes.

The least one can say is that the phenomenon of ‘enforced disappearance’, of which Mr Wazir apparently became a victim, is one of the most brutal practices common to countries ruled by oppressive regimes. It speaks of a government’s arrogance and contempt for the rule of law which prompts it to act as it sees fit in a no-holds-barred fashion. In this case, there are powers who do not want any facts relating to the ‘war on terror’ being waged in Waziristan to be made public. Mr Wazir was doing just that and very professionally. Hence an attempt to suppress information. Gone are the days of press controls that tarnished the image of a country. The ‘disappearance’ of a journalist aims to serve a dual purpose: silence him and send a warning to others.

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As one of those Musharraf derided ‘extremist liberals’ your Blogger believes Press Freedom to be sacrosanct. In a country where you have a historically enfeebled parliament and judiciary, the rights of the press become paramount. It is through the press, in these trying circumstances, that the public can at least hope for some modicum of accountability.

Husain Haqqani raises some pertinent points in today’s Nation:

Pakistan’s generals, beginning with the late General Ziaul Haq, learnt a lesson from the resentment built against the civilian leaders as a result of their high profile actions against the media. Both Ziaul Haq and Musharraf have shown the ability to accept personal criticism and have avoided taking action against well-known critics, especially ones whose writings are unlikely to foment a revolution in the first place.

The generals’ model of media control is to target poor but well informed reporters not known to the English speaking urban gentry. If the worst truth about regime policies does not come out from where the action actually takes place –Waziristan, Larkana, remote parts of Balochistan—then the state machinery can continue to harp on its broad mindedness. Internationally well known media personalities can criticise the regime, while at the same time securing for it high marks for allowing the criticism. But the criticism must be of the drawing room variety, covering issues that do not cause the masses to question the military’s authority.

The model of media control under this government has been to make examples of reporters on ground that would then make others toe the line. Media freedom since 1999, though considerable, has still been within well-defined parameters. The parameters for the English language media have been wider than for the vernacular press. Multiple TV channels have been opened without giving credit to the elected leaders under whom the concept of private television channel ownership was first mooted. Many more topics have been opened to discussion on radio and TV, and criticising the President has been allowed quite widely.

At the same time, key issues have still been kept out of bounds or subject to self-censorship by owners of media outlets. The government wants to arrogate to itself the right of identifying issues over which it might be criticised. Touchy subjects include discussion of the role of Pakistan’s invisible government, the intelligence services, and the corruption or self-aggrandisement of this regime’s key figures.

Human rights and sovereignty violations in the war against terrorism must be kept under wraps. The dirty war against fellow Pakistanis in Balochistan cannot be reported except in vague and general terms. Opinions critical of the military regime are allowed but facts that back up these opinions must not be revealed. That way, those in authority can keep reassuring their international backers and domestic supporters that all is well and the ranting of critics in the media is only the expression of frustration by opinionated semi-politicians bearing a grudge against them or their appointees.

Historically, the sensitivity of a regime in Pakistan to dissent and truth telling is often directly proportional to its feelings of vulnerability. Overt repression is less in days of self-confidence and more in periods of insecurity. The current rise in murder and abduction of journalists speaks volumes about the anxiety of Pakistan’s current rulers over their ability to continue to indefinitely control the unfortunate people of Pakistan.

Pakistan
Press Freedom
Censorship
Dilawar Khan

BBC Reporter Mysteriously ‘Disappears’

Yesterday one of BBC Urdu Service’s correspondents, Dilawar Ali Khan Wazir, went ‘missing’ in extremely suspicious circumstances.
As today’s Nation newspaper reported:

The 38-year old Dilawar Ali Wazir works for BBC-Urdu Service and came to Islamabad to see his brother, Zulfiqar Ali Wazir…[and] was last seen leaving the university hostel in a cab for Dera Ismail Khan.

The mysterious disappearance of Dilawar surfaced when some plain-clothed persons, apparently operatives of some secret agency, reached the University hostel and asked for his brother Zulfiqar, said Ejaz Mehr, a colleague of the missing journalist at BBC. The suspected visitors initially met friends of Zulfiqar and told them that Dilawar has been injured in an accident near Peerwadhai and taken to Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS), Mehr added.

However, the younger Wazir and his friends decided not to accompany the visitors and verify the facts themselves.

After refusing to accompany the visitors, Zulfiqar tried to contact his brother on his mobile phone but the call was attended by someone else, identifying himself as Dr Jamshed at PIMS. This person also stated that Dilawar Khan Wazir was in PIMS after being injured in the accident.

However, when the friends of Zulfiqar Ali Wazir and Ejaz Mehr reached PIMS neither Dilawar Khan Wazir was found inside nor any one with the name of Dr Jamshed could be spotted.

A hospital worker told Ejaz Mehr that there was no doctor in the hospital with such name.

I sincerely hope for Dilawar Ali Khan Wazir’s family, friends, and colleagues (and for all believers in human rights and press freedom) that he is found safe, sound and healthy in the shortest of possible time. Considering his 15-year-old brother was kidnapped and shot dead in August, this must be a particularly harrowing time for his family.

According to IFEX Dilawar had recently returned from covering the controversial air strike on Chingai madrrassa in the Bajaur tribal. Adding:

"Even if one cannot rule out the possibility that the journalist, traumatised by the recent murder of his younger brother, did have an accident, the circumstances of his disappearance lead us to fear he was abducted. We fear he could be the latest victim of kidnappings of reporters like that of Hayatullah Khan a year ago," the organisation added.

Things aren’t particularly good for journalists in Pakistan right now. Even today’s
International Herald Tribune notes that: 'Numerous Pakistan journalists have vanished and been killed after apparently covering topics sensitive to the government and pro-Taliban militants.'

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Your Blogger suggests that for those that who ramble and bluster about the healthy state of press freedom under Musharraf, it is time to shut up.

Links:

Reporters Without Borders report

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Press Freedom
Censorship
BBC

TV Station Banned by Islamabad.

On Thursday 9th November Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA) banned the broadcast of Sindh TV channel by ordering all cable TV operators to stop transmitting it for public viewing.

According to a newspaper report a PEMRA official has confessed that the TV channel had been banned at the request of the federal Ministry of Interior.

Head of the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA) Cable Television (CTV) Policy Making, Brigadier Zahid Shakeel Ahmeds aid that Sindh TV's permission to telecast programmes was taken back on a request received from the federal ministry. "It is an issue pertaining to security clearance. We received a call from the interior ministry asking us to shut their transmission because they had violated the clearance". (Daily Times)

Some opposition politicians have gone on record to state ‘that the transmission had been suspended on the orders of ISPR Director General Maj Gen Shaukat Sultan’ (Daily Times).

It is believed that the Sindh TV channel had upset the Military Regime by broadcasting “critical reports about the suicide bombing of the Army training outfit in the North Western Frontier Province, and the recent army crackdown on militants in Baluchistan province: (VOA)

As IFEX reports, this is not the first time that a television station has been suspended by PEMRA or by local authorities. The Punjab police stopped cable operators from broadcasting ARY TV in September after it screened footage of police brutality

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Previous blog: Pakistan Hits Near Bottom on Press Freedom List

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Press Freedom
Censorship
Sindh TV

Pakistan Hits Near Bottom on Press Freedom List

Fact: Pakistan came at 157 out of 168 countries in Reporters Sans Frontières Worldwide Press Freedom Index for 2006.

Now note the slide over the past five years:

In 2002 Pakistan came 119 out of 139 countries

In 2003 Pakistan came 128 out of 166 countries

In 2004 Pakistan came 150 out of 167 countries

In 2005 Pakistan came 150 out of 167 countries

In 2006 Pakistan came 157 out of 168 countries

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Our regime leadership has made it a habit to effusively praise the ‘press freedom’ that it claims exists in Pakistan. ‘’ At the 2006 awards ceremony of the All-Pakistan Newspapers Society Musharraf blithely announced : ‘I am for total freedom of the media, which is the fourth pillar of the state and is the first line of defence in today’s world.’

Not to be out done, Shaukat Aziz regularly blathers on about our press freedom. On one occasion the Business Recorder quoted him as saying, "There is a democratic environment in the country and that the press is free. We believe in the freedom of the press." But then inadvertently Shaukat Aziz came closer to the truth by adding, "We give permission for criticism…."

Yup, you are right Shortcut, but we also know that this permission is often forcibly withheld.

Now many readers of daily Yawn and some other English-language newspapers will probably disagree with me and point to the trenchant criticism of the military regime found in many of the Op-Ed columns.

My rejoinder to them is that there is no such ‘animal’ as part freedom. Either you have press freedom or you don’t. Here are some realities about the freedom of the English language Press:

• Of a country of over 165 million people, due to shockingly low literacy rates, only some 2 million read newspapers and English language papers account for only a fraction of those readers. Take Dawn for example, according to one of its own editors, M. Ziauddin, the newspaper ‘can write whatever it wants these days, but that's because hardly anybody reads it’.



• Secondly, the regime does not regard potentially hostile views of the English-speaking elite as posing any threat to its existence. And so allowing the English language press to be relatively free makes little difference as far Islamabad is concerned.



• On matters sensitive to the regime - such as AQ Khan, the Balochistan insurgency, etc. - even the English language press is regularly prevented from printing newsworthy stories.

While the regime may largely leave the English language newspapers alone, the same is not the case for the vernacular press and the local TV news channels.

According to Reporters Sans Frontières’s 2006 Report:

Pakistan remains attracted to control and censorship. Omnipresent military secret services continue to harass investigative journalists, while the Urdu-language press is closely watched.

A former editor of The News Beena Sarwar has described the activities of these agencies:

Among the tactics of intimidation used are phone taps, surveillance, threatening or interrogating phone calls, or visits from intelligence agency personnel.

At times the regime moves swiftly to prevent ‘harmful’ news from spreading, as was the case in late 2005 when it closed a local FM Radio relaying a BBC World Service Programme, which began providing independent news on the earthquake relief efforts.

However the coercive effort of the regime to control the large number of TV news channels is much more significant.

Unlike the newspaper circulation which is restricted by high rates of illiteracy, cable TV news channels, such as Geo, ARY, Aaj, Roshini, KTN, etc., are watched widely in urban areas and have acquired viewership running in tens of millions.

Consequently all these news channels are very closely monitored by the secret agencies. As the news editor of GEO News TV once told your Blogger, “Agency control is always just another phone call away”.

To illustrate this rigid control I need just give one glaring example.

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Look at the photo up above. It was taken at the Grand Baloch Jirga which took place in Kalat, Balochistan on 21 September this year.

It was the first time Baloch tribal elders have all gathered together in 125 years.

And what prompted the Jirga? The killing of Nawab Akbar Bugti - a leading tribal chief, politician and possibly the best-known Baloch in Pakistan – at Musharraf‘s behest.

In view of Bugti’s death and the ongoing Baloch insurgency, the Jirga was a major news breaking story.

Now examine the picture closely. The man in the centre of the photo is the Khan of Kalat and in front of him are some two dozen microphones from every TV news channel in Pakistan - with the unremarkable exception of PTV. (Later from a person present at the Jirga confirmed that there were at least 25 to 30 news cameras present at the scene).

That evening the Baloch Jirga was the lead story on BBC Urdu News service. It was covered live by an on-the-spot BBC newsman. Listening to his radio your Blogger was startled to hear live chants from a reported assembled crowd of hundreds of armed Baloch youth loudly demanding ‘Azadi, Azadi’- much, I imagine, to the fury of Islamabad.

This certainly was news as far as I was concerned.

But did any of the news channels play their Jirga recording on their news programme that night (or even, for that matter, the next day)?

Not one.

The story was aggressively killed by a military agency and there wasn’t a peep from anyone of the two or so dozen channels.

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The irony is that it has been recently announced that Musharraf plans to hold a counter-grand jirga of the Baloch on 8th November. At first it was to be held at Quetta but subsequently The News reported that the venue was as yet undecided:

It would be either Islamabad or Quetta, an official told this correspondent. However, he said, its holding in the federal capital would not send out a good message. He said the president was being counselled to chair the Jirga in Quetta…Invitations are unlikely to be issued to chieftains confronting or criticising the government. All guests would be supporters of the government. However, the official effort is to wean away maximum number of tribal heads, who had attended two Jirgas, hosted by the Khan of Qalat, Mir Dawood, in the wake of killing of Nawab Akbar Bugti in a military operation in Kohlu mountains on August 31.

Umm...I like that bit about the effort underway to ‘to wean away maximum number of tribal heads, who had attended two Jirgas, hosted by the Khan of Qalat’.

Most likely it will be case of a plenty of stick rather than any carrots.

The latest news now is that the Grand Jirga will be held in Islamabad and the pressurized ‘Sardars, nawabs and tribal elders would be arriving in Islamabad on November 6 via a special plane from Quetta’.

One thing your Blogger can guarantee is that unlike the earlier media-throttled and genuine Baloch Jirga, this Hollywood-Jirga in Islamabad will take place in the full glare of press publicity and every TV news channel will be ordered to cover it extensively.

That, my readers, is the freedom of the press in Pakistan today.

Pakistan

Press Freedom

Censorship