(RSF/IFEX) – In a letter to State Secretary for Information S. Anwar Mahmood, RSF expressed its concern after foreign and Pakistani journalists were prevented from working in the country’s north-western region. “Pakistani authorities must guarantee journalists’ right to inform the international community about the situation in Pakistan and at the Afghan border,” said RSF Secretary-General […]
(RSF/IFEX) – In a letter to State Secretary for Information S. Anwar Mahmood, RSF expressed its concern after foreign and Pakistani journalists were prevented from working in the country’s north-western region. “Pakistani authorities must guarantee journalists’ right to inform the international community about the situation in Pakistan and at the Afghan border,” said RSF Secretary-General Robert Ménard. The organisation also urged the state secretary to ask military leaders to punish members of the security forces who have committed attacks on media professionals.
According to information obtained by RSF, on 18 September 2001, two Norwegian journalists and a Pakistani photographer were briefly detained by Pakistani security forces near a military base and Peshawar airport (in North-West Frontier Province). Photographer Jon Ingemundsew, from the Norwegian newspaper “Stavanger Aftenblad”, an unidentified colleague of his, and photographer Ghafar Baig, from the Pakistani news agency Online, were interrogated by members of the secret service. According to Baig, the agents wanted to verify if the journalists had taken pictures of or filmed the military base.
That same day, Pakistani soldiers prevented foreign journalists from entering the border town Torkahm, located 54 kilometres west of Peshawar. According to a British reporter, the group was stopped ten kilometres from the border. The day before, foreign reporters were manhandled by Pakistani security personnel in Torkham and prevented from interviewing Afghani refugees. Thousands of Afghanis have fled the country in fear of attacks by United States (US) forces against the Taliban regime, which is protecting Osama bin Laden. Journalists who had Federal Information Ministry authorisations were threatened by officers and escorted back to their vehicles.
About fifty foreign journalists are now in Peshawar to cover the situation at the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan following threats of a US reprisal attack.
“The Taliban and the Media”, a report published by RSF, is available at www.rsf.org.
