(RSF/IFEX) – In a letter to the Pakistani interior minister, Lieutenant General Moin-ud-din Haider, RSF protested the attack on Tariq Swati, a PTV public television channel cameraman, by activists of the Hazara Qaumi Mahaz (HQM) Party, which supports President Pervez Musharraf. “It has to be admitted that this violent attack, which occurred on the very […]
(RSF/IFEX) – In a letter to the Pakistani interior minister, Lieutenant General Moin-ud-din Haider, RSF protested the attack on Tariq Swati, a PTV public television channel cameraman, by activists of the Hazara Qaumi Mahaz (HQM) Party, which supports President Pervez Musharraf. “It has to be admitted that this violent attack, which occurred on the very day of the referendum on the extension of General Musharraf’s mandate, contradicts the head of state’s remarks on the exemplary holding of the referendum,” stated RSF Secretary-General Robert Ménard. The organisation asked the interior minister to do everything in his power to ensure that the complaint filed by Swati is followed up and the perpetrators of this attack are arrested.
According to the information obtained by RSF, Swati escaped a murder attempt on 30 April 2002 by HQM militants, in front of a polling station in Abbottabad (in Pakistan’s North-West Frontier Province). The cameraman was kicked and beaten by the activists, who accused him of not filming the actions of President Musharraf’s sympathisers long enough. One of the aggressors even threatened the cameraman with a revolver when he was already lying on the ground. Other journalists and opposition parties’ activists intervened to stop the journalist from being shot dead. Doctors diagnosed a kidney wound. A First Information Report has been lodged but police have not made any arrests to date.
Journalists’ organisations in Abbottabad have called for the arrest of the perpetrators of the attack. According to Sardar Abrar Rashid, president of the Hazara Union of Journalists, the activists used extreme violence against the journalist.
