(CPJ/IFEX) – The following is a 15 December 1998 CPJ letter to Pakistani Prime Minister Muhammad Nawaz Sharif further to the recent harassment of the independent media in Pakistan: **Updates IFEX alerts of 15 December 1998** SENT BY FAX – to 011-92-51-920-5532 His Excellency Muhammad Nawaz Sharif Prime Minister Prime Minister’s Secretariat Islamabad, Pakistan Your […]
(CPJ/IFEX) – The following is a 15 December 1998 CPJ letter to Pakistani
Prime Minister Muhammad Nawaz Sharif further to the recent harassment of
the independent media in Pakistan:
**Updates IFEX alerts of 15 December 1998**
SENT BY FAX – to 011-92-51-920-5532
His Excellency Muhammad Nawaz Sharif
Prime Minister
Prime Minister’s Secretariat
Islamabad, Pakistan
Your Excellency:
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is greatly alarmed by the
government’s recent efforts to control the independent media in Pakistan.
Since August, CPJ has received numerous reports indicating that the
government has embarked upon a systematic campaign to harass and intimidate
the Jang Group of Newspapers for publishing articles unflattering to the
administration. The Jang group, Pakistan’s largest newspaper company,
publishes two of the country’s most widely-read papers: the daily
Urdu-language Jang newspaper and The News, an English-language daily.
Jang’s December 14 publication of articles about a financial scandal
involving your family’s Ittefaq Group of Companies, reports of which have
been featured in London’s Observer newspaper, was followed by a raid on
Jang’s Rawalpindi bureau by officers from Pakistan’s Federal Investigation
Agency. Mir Shakil-ur-Rahman, publisher and editor-in-chief of the Jang
Group of Newspapers, has said that the government applied intense pressure
on him not to print the offending article, which ran prominently in both
Jang and The News. Yesterday, FIA officers spent hours questioning newspaper
staff, demanding to check Jang’s actual stock of newsprint against the
company’s records. This investigation was apparently the latest attempt by
officials to intimidate newspaper management.
In October, the government served the Jang Group with tax notices totaling
over 720 million rupees (about $13 million). Journalists in Pakistan report
that those in power have long used the country’s tax code to punish
newspapers and magazines for opposing the government. In this case, although
the Income Tax Appellate Court has stalled collection of these taxes pending
a review of the claim’s merits, employees of the Jang Group have reported
continued harassment by authorities.
Various government departments have also made it extremely difficult for
Jang to obtain sufficient newsprint to publish standard editions of its
newspapers. The company’s bank accounts were temporarily frozen by
government order, preventing them from purchasing newsprint, and customs
officials held a consignment of paper until a laboratory test could be
conducted to determine whether the paper ordered by the company was indeed
newsprint.
Jang has also experienced more direct pressure. For example,
Shakil-ur-Rahman says that Senator Saifur Rahman-who heads the government’s
Ehtesab (Accountability) Bureau, established by the present administration
to investigate corruption charges against the previous government-has
repeatedly asked him to dismiss a number of senior journalists who have
written critically about your administration. Among the journalists on the
government’s blacklist are:
Maleeha Lodhi, editor, The News (Rawalpindi)
Irshad Ahmed Haqqani, editor, Jang (Lahore)
Kamran Khan, investigative editor, The News (Karachi)
Sohaib Marghob, editor, Jang Sunday Magazine (Lahore)
Abid Tahimi, feature editor, Jang magazine (Lahore)
Mahmood Sham, editor, Jang (Karachi)
Kamila Hyat, editor, The News (Lahore)
Marianna Babar, special correspondent, The News (Rawalpindi)
Kaleem Omar, writer, The News (Karachi)
Sohail Wariach, senior assistant editor, Jang (Lahore)
Beena Sarwar, editor, The News on Sunday (Lahore)
Nasir Beg Chughtai, chief news editor, Jang (Karachi)
Mudassir Mirza, news editor, Jang (Karachi)
Khawar Naeem Hashmi, chief news editor, Jang (Lahore)
Sajjad Anwar, editor, Jang magazine (Rawalpindi)
So far, Shakil-ur-Rahman has resisted the government’s demands to make staff
changes, but several of the journalists targetted by the government have
recently been silent on politically sensitive topics.
Disturbingly similar pressures have been applied to the well-respected
magazine Newsline, an English-language monthly run by a journalists’
cooperative. On October 1, plainclothes officers raided the magazine’s
Karachi office, pressing staff to reveal home phone numbers and addresses of
the magazine’s editors. According to Rehana Hakim, Newsline’s editor, the
administration has also ordered tax audits of the magazine and several staff
members in apparent retaliation for the magazine’s coverage of government
corruption. Since the magazine went public with these allegations against
the government, friends and family members of senior staff have reported
receiving intimidating phone calls asking them to disclose their home
addresses.
Although Your Excellency has stated that “no orders have been given by the
prime minister or my government to any department for any persecution of the
press,” a number of Pakistani journalists see the recent actions against the
Jang Group and Newsline as indicative of the government’s growing
intolerance of the independent media. The administration’s decision to
withdraw government advertising from certain publications has also been
interpreted by members of the press in Pakistan as an effort to strangle
critical voices. Islamabad’s English-language Muslim newspaper-which, like
many publications in Pakistan, was financially dependent on revenue from
political ads-announced on November 25 that it had temporarily suspended
operations after the government discontinued advertising in the daily.
As a nonpartisan organization of journalists dedicated to the defense of our
colleagues around the world, CPJ joins the All Pakistan Newspapers Society,
Council of Pakistan Newspaper Editors, Pakistan Federal Union of
Journalists, Karachi Union of Journalists, and the Rawalpindi Islamabad
Union of Journalists in protesting the apparent government crackdown on the
press in Pakistan. CPJ respectfully urges your administration to cease all
actions aimed at controlling the independent media.
We appreciate your attention to these matters, and await your response.
Sincerely Yours,
Ann K. Cooper
Executive Director
cc: American Society of Newspaper Editors
Amnesty International
Article 19
Canadian Committee To Protect Journalists
Congressional Committee to Support Writers and Journalists
Freedom House
Human Rights Watch
Index on Censorship
International Association of Broadcasting
International Federation of Journalists
International Federation of Newspaper Publishers
International Journalism Institute
International PEN
International Press Institute
National Association of Black Journalists
National Press Club
Newspaper Association of America
The Newspaper Guild
North American National Broadcasters Association
Reporters sans Frontieres
Overseas Press Club
The Society of Professional Journalists
World Press Freedom Committee
Similar appeals can be sent to:
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.
