(CPJ/IFEX) – CPJ is outraged by this weekend’s arrest of veteran journalist Najam Sethi, founder and editor of the English-language weekly newspaper “Friday Times”. Sethi is the third Pakistani journalist arrested under suspicious circumstances in less than a week, prompting fears that Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s government is engaged in a campaign to silence the […]
(CPJ/IFEX) – CPJ is outraged by this weekend’s arrest of veteran journalist
Najam Sethi, founder and editor of the English-language weekly newspaper
“Friday Times”. Sethi is the third Pakistani journalist arrested under
suspicious circumstances in less than a week, prompting fears that Prime
Minister Nawaz Sharif’s government is engaged in a campaign to silence the
country’s independent press. All three men had been interviewed before their
arrest by a BBC television crew preparing a report on high-level official
corruption in Pakistan for the program “Correspondent.”
**Updates IFEX alerts of 10 May, 6 May and 5 May 1999**
Around 2:30 a.m. on 8 May 1999, dozens of government agents raided Sethi’s
home.
According to Jugnu Mohsin, Sethi’s wife and the publisher of the “Friday
Times”, the raid was the work of Pakistan’s Intelligence Bureau in
partnership with the Punjab police. She said that the officers forced their
way through the locked gate of the residence, assaulted two security guards
who had been hired to protect the family, and broke into the house. At least
eight armed officers – only two in uniform, the rest in plainclothes – burst
into the couple’s bedroom to make the arrest. Officers pulled Sethi out of
bed, and beat him with billy clubs and steel handcuffs, said Mohsin. She
added that when she asked the officers to produce a warrant for the arrest,
one of them threatened to shoot Sethi immediately and leave his corpse in
place of any warrant.
While some officers dragged Sethi away at gunpoint, two others tied up
Mohsin and locked her in her dressing room. During the course of the raid,
officers had also taken the couple’s mobile phones and destroyed the bedroom
telephone with a rifle butt.
An unnamed government spokesman was quoted widely in the Pakistani press as
saying that the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency was responsible for
the arrest, and citing Sethi’s alleged collaboration with Indian
intelligence agents as grounds for his detention. Just two days before his
arrest, Sethi told CPJ that the government was using the state-controlled
media to set the stage for his arrest on charges of high treason and
sedition. Sethi said he had been warned by senior government officials that
his recent work with the BBC is viewed by some members of the administration
as an attempt to destabilize the country and overthrow the government, and
that his arrest was imminent.
In response to a writ petition first presented before the Lahore High Court
on Saturday by Asma Jehangir, a lawyer who formerly chaired the independent
Pakistan Human Rights Commission, the Punjab provincial government has said
it would attempt to locate Sethi by Wednesday. Sethi is still being held
incommunicado at an undisclosed location, though his wife says she was told
by the Governor of Punjab Province that he has been moved to Islamabad.
Meanwhile, Hussain Haqqani, a regular columnist for the “Friday Times” and
the Urdu-language daily newspaper “Jang”, is still missing, after being
kidnapped by a group of men believed to be agents from Pakistan’s Federal
Investigation Agency (FIA) on 4 May. Official statements indicate that the
government plans to charge Haqqani with embezzlement, but no charges have
yet been filed, and his whereabouts are still unknown. As in Sethi’s case, a
Lahore High Court judge has ordered the provincial government to respond to
a habeas corpus petition, but no new information has yet been provided.
Haqqani is also a leader of Pakistan’s political opposition, but government
officials have told CPJ’s sources that he is being detained in connection
with interviews he gave to the BBC team, and that he could be charged with
sedition and treason on the basis of his recent columns.
Mehmood Ahmed Khan (M.A.K.) Lodhi, the head of investigations for the Lahore
edition of the English-language daily “The News”, was detained for two days
by the
Intelligence Bureau and interrogated about his involvement with the BBC
project. Lodhi was arrested on 2 May and released on 4 May with no official
explanation for his illegal detention.
Recommended Action
Send appeals to the prime minister:
independent
journalists, apparently unconcerned with international standards regarding
the right to free expression and unchecked by the laws of Pakistan
guarantees that “Every citizen shall have the right to freedom of speech and
expression, and there shall be freedom of the press,” and Article 9 of the
constitution states that “No person who is arrested shall be detained in
custody without being informed, as soon as may be, of the grounds for such
arrest,” and that “Every person who is arrested and detained in custody
shall be produced before a magistrate within a period of twenty-four hours
of such arrest”
and publicly reveal the reasons for their detention, noting that there is
growing concern among journalists in Pakistan about the safety of the two
men
Appeals To
His Excellency Muhammad Nawaz Sharif
Prime Minister
Prime Minister’s Secretariat
Islamabad, Pakistan
Fax: 92 51 920 5532
E-mail: primeminister@pak.gov.pk
Please copy appeals to the source if possible.
