(RSF/IFEX) – In a 12 June 2001 letter to Pakistan’s North West Frontier Province (NWFP) Governor Syed Iftikhar Hussain Shah, RSF protested the banning of the daily “Mohasib” and the arrest of three journalists from this regional newspaper. RSF asked the governor to repeal this decision and intervene in favour of the arrested journalists. “After […]
(RSF/IFEX) – In a 12 June 2001 letter to Pakistan’s North West Frontier Province (NWFP) Governor Syed Iftikhar Hussain Shah, RSF protested the banning of the daily “Mohasib” and the arrest of three journalists from this regional newspaper. RSF asked the governor to repeal this decision and intervene in favour of the arrested journalists. “After the ‘Frontier Post’, the law on blasphemy is once again being used to close a newspaper. If local and federal authorities give way as easily to fundamentalists’ pressures, freedom of expression risks degenerating quickly in this region bordering Afghanistan,” declared RSF Secretary-General Robert Ménard.
According to information obtained by RSF, Pakistan’s NWFP authorities forbade, sealed and took away the publishing licence of regional daily “Mohasib”, published in Abbottabad (fifty kilometres north of Islamabad). This decision follows the publication, on 29 May, of an article titled “The Beard and Islam”. In this text, renowned intellectual and poet Jamil Yousaf criticised the position of Pakistani fundamentalists who affirm that a man without a beard could not be a good Muslim. The article also criticised the role of religious leaders who use religion to serve their personal interests. Since its publication, some fundamentalists in the town of Abbottabad publicly threatened the newspaper. During a demonstration organised on 8 June, in Abbottabad, clerics called for the death penalty against the person responsible for this blasphemy.
The same day, police arrested managing editor Shahid Chaudry, news editor Shakil Tahirkheli and sub-editor Raja Muhammad Haroon, according to Articles 295 A and C of the Law on blasphemy. They were detained for two days in the Cant police station and then transferred to a jail in Abbottabad. These arrests are linked to a complaint of blasphemy lodged by Waqar Jadoon of the religious group Khatme Nabooat Youth Force. The suspects face the death penalty.
In January, the national daily “Frontier Post”, published in Peshawar, was banned. Six employees of this newspaper have been arrested and accused of blasphemy. One of them, Munawar, is still detained in a jail in Peshawar (see IFEX alerts of 12 March, 20, 2 and 1 February and 30 January 2001).
