(RSF/IFEX) – In a 31 May 2000 letter to Home Affairs Minister Moin-ud-Din Haider, RSF asked for serious investigations to be conducted in order to identify the authors of and partners in the deliberate attacks against the newspapers “Business Recorder” and “Shaam”, and to punish them with jail sentences. RSF also asked the minister to […]
(RSF/IFEX) – In a 31 May 2000 letter to Home Affairs Minister Moin-ud-Din Haider, RSF asked for serious investigations to be conducted in order to identify the authors of and partners in the deliberate attacks against the newspapers
“Business Recorder” and “Shaam”, and to punish them with jail sentences. RSF also asked the minister to guarantee the safety of journalists and to ensure the protection of media buildings. According to Robert Ménard, the organisation’s secretary-general, the attacks were “a reminder of the threats facing Pakistani journalists from extremists.”
According to the information collected by RSF, the investigation conducted by Karachi police has reached no conclusions so far, two weeks after the ransacking and burning on 18 May of the financial newspaper “Business Recorder” by a mob of supporters of Maulana Yousuf Ludhianvi, a Sunni religious scholar who was killed on the morning of the attack. The majority of the newspaper’s employees were obliged to hide for several hours because of a lack of police protection. According to a police officer, “some individuals are suspected of participating in the attack”, but Arshad Zuberi, the newspaper’s editor, affirmed that “nothing has been done.” Javed Jabbar, an advisor to the head of state, said during a visit to the destroyed building which houses the newspaper that the attack was “well prepared” and showed “the dangers of extremism.”
On 26 April, some fifty armed people attacked and ransacked the offices of the newspaper “Shaam”, published in Hyderabad. According to Naz Sehto, the editor of the daily, the attacked came after the publication of articles exposing corruption in local authorities.
