(PEN Canada/IFEX) – The following is a PEN Canada press release: PEN Canada Expresses Concern Over Threats Made Against Toronto Newspaper Journalist Toronto, December 23 – A Toronto-based editor for a Pakistani community newspaper has been the target of death threats, PEN Canada has learned. Earlier this month, Aamir Arain, who is the resident editor […]
(PEN Canada/IFEX) – The following is a PEN Canada press release:
PEN Canada Expresses Concern Over Threats Made Against Toronto Newspaper Journalist
Toronto, December 23 – A Toronto-based editor for a Pakistani community newspaper has been the target of death threats, PEN Canada has learned.
Earlier this month, Aamir Arain, who is the resident editor of The Pakistan Post, which circulates throughout Canada and the United States of America, received a call on his cell phone from an anonymous individual who threatened to kill him. The threat was made in response to a news item, based on a Royal Canadian Mounted Police report, that the paper had published in November concerning a drug bust in Toronto that implicated influential members of the local Pakistani business community.
“We are shocked at the report of a death threat made against a member of news media in Canada,” PEN Canada Executive Director Isobel Harry said. “This sort of tactic, which is routinely made elsewhere in the world, is something that should not be tolerated in Canada.”
PEN Canada sent a letter to Peel Regional Police Chief Noel Catney and Ontario Attorney General Michael Bryant in which the organization called on them to conduct a thorough investigation of the death threats against Mr Arain that would lead to the identification and apprehension of those responsible. PEN Canada also asked that he be given any extra security measures required so that he may live and work in safety.
Soon after the Pakistan Post published the story, advertisers reported that pressure was being brought to bear on them. According to Mr Arain, this has resulted in a 30 per cent loss of advertising for the paper. He believes that associates of the men implicated in the drug bust approached businesses advertisers and coerced them into withdrawing their support.
PEN Canada is a centre of International PEN that campaigns on behalf of writers around the world persecuted for the expression of their thoughts. In Canada, it supports the right to free expression as enshrined in Section 2(b) of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
