(RSF/IFEX) – The following is an RSF press release: COVERING THE WAR IN AFGHANISTAN Figaro Magazine reporter detained in Pakistan Three Pakistani journalists still in jail after one week Aziz Zemouri, a Figaro Magazine reporter, is currently detained in Peshawar by the Pakistani Immigration Department. On 11 October 2001, senior staff from the French weekly […]
(RSF/IFEX) – The following is an RSF press release:
COVERING THE WAR IN AFGHANISTAN
Figaro Magazine reporter detained in Pakistan
Three Pakistani journalists still in jail after one week
Aziz Zemouri, a Figaro Magazine reporter, is currently detained in Peshawar by the Pakistani Immigration Department. On 11 October 2001, senior staff from the French weekly confirmed their special correspondent’s arrest. Two days earlier, the reporter had alerted his magazine that he was in Taliban hands and that he was expecting to be turned over to the Pakistani authorities. When he was questioned by the Taliban, Zemouri had a mobile phone and other reporting devices in his possession, but he was not charged with spying. We do not know if he went to the banned area with guides.
On 9 or 10 October 2001, the Taliban handed the journalist over to the Pakistani authorities after arresting him in Afghanistan, which he had entered illegally. Having both French and Algerian nationalities, he was only submitted to questioning. First detained in Ghulam Khan, in the North Waziristan district (tribal areas), he has since been transferred to the North West Frontier Province’s capital.
The Pakistani newspaper Dawn has reported that Aziz Zemouri was not arrested in Afghanistan but rather in Pakistan, while trying to cross the border.
Muhammad Iqbal, Syed Karim and Rifatullah Orakzai, journalists from the tribal areas, have been jailed since 5 October in Peshawar. They have been questioned by the authorities, but their families fear that they may be transferred to a police special department detention centre, where prisoners are often mistreated. The three journalists were arrested with Olivier Ravanello and Marcan Tetti, two reporters from the French news channel LCI, near the Afghan border. The two French journalists were released on 8 October, further to the intervention of the French embassy in Pakistan.
Reporters sans frontières again urges the Pakistani authorities to release the four journalists.
RSF has also received confirmation that reporter Michel Peyrard and his two Pakistani guides have been transferred to Kabul. They are reportedly being detained in humane conditions. Negotiations to secure their release are currently underway. The two Pakistani guides’ families have intervened with certain Pakistani and Afghan religious officials. Today in Islamabad, French journalists interviewed the Pakistani foreign affairs minister over his country’s efforts to secure his fellow citizens’ release.
