(RSF/IFEX) – RSF has protested Pakistan’s concerted efforts to prevent foreign and local journalists from freely covering the army’s offensive against armed Taliban and Al-Qaeda fighters in the Wana region of South Waziristan. At least four journalists have been arrested and a dozen more have been barred from entering the region. The area is located […]
(RSF/IFEX) – RSF has protested Pakistan’s concerted efforts to prevent foreign and local journalists from freely covering the army’s offensive against armed Taliban and Al-Qaeda fighters in the Wana region of South Waziristan. At least four journalists have been arrested and a dozen more have been barred from entering the region. The area is located in northwestern Pakistan.
The organisation said the government’s duty to ensure journalists’ basic security must not be used as an excuse to prevent the media from independently reporting on the major operation in the fight against terrorism that is underway in the area. RSF called on Major General Shaukat Sultan, the armed forces’ spokesman, to guarantee better access to the region by giving journalists special permits.
The government has barred nearly all Pakistani and foreign journalists from the South Waziristan tribal area. The combat zone has been tightly sealed off by the military. On 20 March 2004, the army organised a helicopter tour of the region for foreign journalists, but excluded the area where fighting has been taking place.
On 16 March, Mujeebur Rehman, a correspondent for the Urdu-language daily “Khabrian” and a stringer for several foreign television stations, was arrested while filming military operations near Wana. Rehman was held for several hours. In addition, his digital camera was confiscated and has not been returned to him.
On 18 March, Shaukat Khattak, a reporter with the privately-owned Pakistani television station Geo TV, was arrested in Dabkot while filming army activities. Despite having the required documents, he was detained for four hours. During his detention, soldiers threatened and insulted him “as if I was a terrorist,” Khattak said.
On 19 March, a reporter and a photographer for the Associated Press news agency were turned back by troops at a roadblock located about an hour’s drive from Wana. Half a dozen other journalists, including two Pakistani photographers, were not allowed into South Waziristan.
On 21 March, Haroon Rashid, a correspondent for BBC World Service radio in Peshawar, and Saiful Islam, a reporter from the Urdu-language daily “Surkhab” and correspondent for the pan-Arab television station Al-Jazeera, were arrested at a Peshawar military hospital. They were trying to interview soldiers who were wounded in the South Waziristan fighting. After a three-hour wait, Pakistani intelligence officials interrogated them, asking why they were in the region. Their film was destroyed and their mini disc recorders were confiscated.
More than a dozen journalists from Wana currently work as stringers for Pakistani and foreign media outlets, but their employers say they are not allowed to work freely. They cannot enter the combat zone and must be cautious about the information they report, said one Islamabad-based foreign journalist, who added that local journalists were under pressure.
RSF has condemned the working conditions for journalists in tribal areas for several years. In its 2002 annual report, the organisation said their “safety and freedom are limited” and that “local authorities and traditional leaders threaten correspondents who denounce their abuses”.
Journalists in Peshawar have had no response from tribal area officials concerning their request for media representatives to be issued special permits for the region.