(RSF/IFEX) – In a letter to Interior Minister Moin-ud-Din Haider, RSF expressed its concern after Inayat-ul-Haq Yasini, a journalist with the Pushto-language daily “Wahdat”, received death threats. RSF asked the minister to ensure “Wahdat” journalists’ safety. According to Robert Ménard, the organisation’s secretary-general, “the threats against one of the reporters of the most popular newspapers […]
(RSF/IFEX) – In a letter to Interior Minister Moin-ud-Din Haider, RSF expressed its concern after Inayat-ul-Haq Yasini, a journalist with the Pushto-language daily “Wahdat”, received death threats. RSF asked the minister to ensure “Wahdat” journalists’ safety. According to Robert Ménard, the organisation’s secretary-general, “the threats against one of the reporters of the most popular newspapers among Afghan refugees demonstrates the risks faced by Afghan and Pakistani journalists who investigate the Taliban.”
According to the information collected by RSF, on 4 July 2000, Inayat-ul-Haq Yasini, a journalist with the daily “Wahdat” in Peshawar (North-West Pakistan), received anonymous phone calls threatening “dire consequences.” In its 26 June issue, “Wahdat” published a survey based on Afghan refugees’ and leaders’ comments in North-West Pakistani camps. The same anonymous caller told the journalist that the article was too favourable to General Al-Maroof Shariati, leader of the Afghanistan National Council for Peace (an opposition party in exile). The journalist says he was previously threatened three times by anonymous phone calls “from the Taliban.” Raham Dil Shah, editor of the Peshawar daily, said they had asked him not to publish the survey “but Yasini insisted.” The journalist also received an anonymous letter that advised him “not to favour General Al-Maroof Shariati’s movement” if he does not want to pay a “high price”. “We would not be responsible for what might happen to those who support this party funded by the CIA”, threatens the letter.
RSF recalled that on 1 June, Mohammad Enam Wak, an Afghan writer, escaped a murder attempt in Peshawar. According to RSF, the Taliban regime, in power in Kabul, is one of the worst predators of press freedom.
