Religious
extremists and security forces continue to intimidate progressive journalists
in Pakistan. In a recent incident, a Karachi-based journalist was beaten by fanatics
for listening to music in his house.
A few days
ago, Zainul Abedin, who works at Pakistan's English-language The News daily,
was dragged out of his house in the middle of the night and beaten up by four
bearded men.
Then he was
warned that if he watched TV in his house and listened to music, he would be
killed. Abedin went to the police station to report the incident, but was met
with resistance.
This all
happened in the heart of Karachi - a relatively liberal city with a population
of more than 15 million - and not in one of the restive, semi-governed
northwestern tribal areas of Pakistan on the border with Afghanistan.
 |
| Some extremist Wahabi groups consider 'qawwali' anti-Islamic and a Hindu tradition |
"As
they (the fanatics) delivered more kicks, slaps and blows, they kept saying:
‘We will not let you go unless you repent,'" Abedin wrote in an email that
he sent to the city's journalists' unions.
"They
went away shouting abuse and threats such as: 'Next time it will be worse. Do
not turn on your TV and no songs and qawwalis (mystical songs) here. You will
not live if it happens again. You and this house will be no more. We will not
break the windows, we will shoot you, kill you.'"
Frightening
Commenting
on the harassment of Abedin, Dr. Riaz Ahmed, a political activist and professor
at Karachi University, told DW that it was not merely about music and TV but
was an organized attempt by the Islamists to intimidate journalists.
Ahmed also
criticized media owners for compromising with Pakistan’s right-wing groups. He
pointed out that Abedin's own newspaper had not taken any notice of the
incident for several days.
"The
message being conveyed by the media owners to journalists like Abedin is: 'If
the mullahs beat you up, you should not protest," he said, adding that
commercial interests of the Pakistani media and religious groups were closely
linked.
 |
| Pakistani journalists feel even more insecure in conflict areas |
Ghazi
Salahuddin, a senior journalist at the Jang Group of Publication, which also
owns The News, told DW that Pakistani journalists had to work under very
difficult circumstances.
"Many
journalists feel scared and threatened. Pakistani politics has been
criminalized. It has become very difficult for journalists to perform their
tasks freely," he said, adding that journalists' unions should ensure that
the rights and lives of people working in the media were protected.
Ahmed's
point of view was that the journalists' unions were either intimidated
themselves or too corrupt to stand up against the media owners.
Intimidating
Observers
say that progressive sections of Pakistani society are being systematically
intimidated by Islamists. Pakistan's liberals are extremely worried about the
growing influence of right-wing groups in their country, and they feel that
their freedom is at risk in the Islamic Republic.
Pakistani
rights activists also complain that the Islamists enjoy state patronage,
whereas liberal and progressive voices often have to face the wrath of the
country's security agencies.
They say
that if a progressive journalist working for a big newspaper such as The News
is unsafe in Karachi, then the risks faced by journalists in the conflict zones
of northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and the western Balochistan provinces are
easily imaginable.
Perilous
 |
| Journalist Saleem Shahzad was kidnapped and murdered last year |
A 2012
UNESCO report ranks Pakistan "the second most dangerous country for
journalists the world over" after Mexico. According to the South Asian
Free Media Association (SAFMA), 17 journalists were killed in South Asia in
2011, 12 of them in Pakistan.
Terrorism
and Islamism are the most dangerous issues for Pakistani journalists to report
on, SAFMA said.
Nasir
Tufail of Geo TV told DW that the local and foreign media rely on only a few
journalists for information about the restive northwestern tribal areas.
“Most
journalists can’t even enter these areas,” he said. "Therefore, it's
impossible to get reliable news about the Taliban and the 'war on
terror.'"
He added
that most journalists would not even think of venturing into "most parts
of Balochisan, where the military is operating against separatists. How
can you expect independent reporting?"
Imtiaz
Alam, the secretary general of SAFMA, blamed both state and non-state elements
for the situation. "So many journalists in Pakistan have been killed. Yet
nobody has ever been brought to justice for their murders."
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