(IFJ/IFEX) – The following is an IFJ media release: Pakistan’s new low: Child brother of slain journalist killed, missing journalist tortured The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) is stunned and sickened by the murder of Bashir, the child brother of slain journalist Hayatullah Khan, and news of the brutal torture of missing senior journalist Saeed […]
(IFJ/IFEX) – The following is an IFJ media release:
Pakistan’s new low: Child brother of slain journalist killed, missing journalist tortured
The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) is stunned and sickened by the murder of Bashir, the child brother of slain journalist Hayatullah Khan, and news of the brutal torture of missing senior journalist Saeed Sarbazi.
According to IFJ affiliate, the Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists (PFUJ), it appears Bashir’s murder was a message to his family, who had been active in trying to expose Khan’s killers. Bashir Kahn is the second child in a month apparently murdered to target a journalist or a journalist’s relatives.
However, no charges have been laid in Khan’s kidnapping and murder case, and the government is still refusing to release the judicial report on the case.
“The government has been worryingly inactive in the case of Khan, and this inaction has allowed a further atrocity to occur with the murder of his younger brother,” Warren said.
“We are writing to President Musharraf today to demand immediate action to prevent relatives of journalists being attacked and killed as a sickening way of silencing journalists,” he said.
“Our thoughts go out to the grieving family of Hayatullah and little Bashir Khan,” Warren said.
Last month the 16-year-old brother of BBC correspondent Dilawar Khan was killed apparently because of Dilawar’s reporting.
“These latest attacks on children who are relatives of journalists have pushed the safety situation in Pakistan to a new low,” the IFJ president said.
“While the IFJ is deeply concerned at how frighteningly common it has become for journalists in Pakistan to be violently targeted for their work, we are even more alarmed at the disturbing new trend emerging where journalists’ family members, particularly children, are being targeted,” he said.
The IFJ is also shocked and disgusted by the reported torture of Sarbazi, joint secretary of the Karachi Press Club, senior Sub-Editor of the daily Business Recorder and a member of the All Pakistan Newspapers Employees Confederation’s National Executive Committee, who was returned late in the evening of Friday September 22 after disappearing on September 20.
According to the PFUJ, Sarbazi was abducted by intelligence agencies, beaten and kicked until unconscious, called a terrorist and criminal despite identifying himself as a journalist, was blindfolded for over 50 hours and was not allowed to eat or sleep.
“This inhumane treatment is disgusting: to brutally torture a journalist in such a cruel way is beyond unacceptable and immediate action must be taken to find the perpetrators of this horrendous attack,” IFJ President Christopher Warren said.
“The IFJ strongly urges the government of Pakistan to act immediately on this case and to fight the culture of impunity that seems to be developing in Pakistan,” Warren said.
“Following months of beatings, murders and assaults, and now, the torture of a well-respected senior journalist, and the callous murder of a journalist’s brother, indicates Pakistan is slipping further away from a free and open society, and the government can no longer remain idle on these terrible crimes,” Warren said.
The IFJ, as the organisation representing more than 500,000 journalists in over 115 countries, is writing to the president of Pakistan, Pervez Musharraf, to protest the disturbing new low for safety in Pakistan and the culture of impunity that has developed for those who murder, attack, threaten or harm journalists and their families.
The IFJ represents more than 500,000 journalists in over 115 countries.
