(RSF/IFEX) – In a letter to Pakistan’s interior minister, Lt-General Moin-ud-din Haider, RSF called for the immediate release of British journalist Amardeep Bassey of the “Sunday Mercury” newspaper. “Once again, a reporter of Indian origin has been arrested by the Pakistani security services on a ridiculous pretext. The accusations of spying are grotesque and indicate […]
(RSF/IFEX) – In a letter to Pakistan’s interior minister, Lt-General Moin-ud-din Haider, RSF called for the immediate release of British journalist Amardeep Bassey of the “Sunday Mercury” newspaper. “Once again, a reporter of Indian origin has been arrested by the Pakistani security services on a ridiculous pretext. The accusations of spying are grotesque and indicate discrimination against journalists of Indian origin,” said RSF Secretary-General Robert Ménard. The organisation asked the interior minister to do everything in his power to ensure that Bassey is released and that the responsible authorities sort out his situation.
According to information gathered by RSF, Bassey, a reporter with the Birmingham-based “Sunday Mercury” weekly newspaper (part of the Trinity Mirror group), was arrested on 11 May 2002, at the Afghan-Pakistan border post of Torkhan (in the country’s north-west). The reporter was returning from Afghanistan accompanied by two guides from Pakistan’s tribal areas. According to the police, Bassey was arrested and detained in the Landikotal prison because he did not have an exit visa from Pakistan, although he had been in Peshawar a few days earlier. RSF spoke to “Daily Mercury” editor-in-chief Dave Brooks, who said his reporter had been in the region for several weeks. He had been invited to Kabul (Afghanistan) by the United Kingdom’s Foreign Office to cover the activities of British peace-keeping forces. Bassey, who has reported from Pakistan on previous occasions, decided to remain in the region and went to Peshawar. He has written articles on the reconstruction of Afghanistan and interviewed an English man held in Peshawar for drug dealing.
In 2001, Bassey, aged 29, was awarded the prize for best investigative journalism in the British Midlands.
During the war in Afghanistan, the authorities refused to grant press visas to Indian journalists. Several reporters of Indian origin were victims of discrimination. For example, Aditya Sinha, an American journalist working for the Indian daily “Hindustan Times”, and Rajiv Chandrasekaran, a special correspondent for the “Washington Post”, were deported from Pakistan after being questioned by the secret service (see IFEX alert of 30 October 2001).
