Report in Dawn, September 13th, 2018
KARACHI/ISLAMABAD: The climate for press freedom in Pakistan has been deteriorating, even as overall violence against and murder of journalists decline, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said on Wednesday.
In a special report compiled after recording testimonies of journalists in various cities of the country, the CPJ said that journalists, including freelancers, had “painted a picture of a media under siege”.
The contents of the report appear to suggest that it is based on the period before the coming into power of the PTI government.
“The military has quietly, but effectively, set restrictions on reporting: from barring access to regions … to encouraging self-censorship through direct and indirect methods of intimidation, including calling editors to complain about coverage and even allegedly instigating violence against reporters,” observed the CPJ, an independent organisation working to promote press freedom worldwide.
A request emailed by CPJ for comment on the report to spokesman for the armed forces Maj Gen Asif Ghafoor was not answered. Gen Ghafoor did not respond to a request for a meeting as well, it added. A scheduled interview with the then information minister in Islamabad was cancelled at the last minute by the government, the CPJ stated.
According to journalists and press freedom advocates quoted by the CPJ, the decline in violence against members of the press followed the military’s swift response to the terrorist attack on Peshawar’s Army Public School in December 2014.
“While a drop in the murders of journalists is good news, the threat of attack remains,” the report warned.
Journalists and editors across the country, it added, had resorted to self-censorship due to a “widespread sense of intimidation”.
According to them, issues on which caution was frequently exercised while reporting include religion, land disputes, militants, and the economy — subjects that could provoke government officials, militant groups, religious extremists, or the military, it said.
The report observed that legislation such as the Pakistan Protection Ordinance, a counterterrorism law that allows people to be detained without being charged for 90 days, could be used to punish critical reporting.
“I think the numbers [of killed journalists] are going down because the resistance from the media that used to come, let’s say five years or six years ago, had drastically gone down as well,” the report quoted Asad Baig, founder and executive director of Media Matters for Democracy, as saying.
“And that is perhaps because of the very organised control mediums in place. People are very clear about what to say, and what not to say, what are those clearly drawn red lines that they cannot cross,” he added.
It cited the attack on journalist Ahmed Noorani, blocks in the transmission of Geo News and curbs on the circulation of Dawn newspaper as examples of declining press freedom within the past one year.
The report also spoke of a news story about a meeting of the top civil-military officials published in Dawn in 2016, that later became known as ‘Dawn Leaks’.
Journalists find themselves in the middle of this [civilian government vs military] battle, struggling to report while staying out of trouble, it said.
The military and other powerful institutions had established lines of control to stifle the press, the report said, adding that self-censorship had resulted in Pakistani media consumers not getting “a full or accurate picture of critical issues facing the country”.
In a series of recommendations to the government, the CPJ urged the authorities to move swiftly to revise and enact the draft journalist safety legislation that included provisions for a special prosecutor to pursue crimes against press freedom. The special prosecutor must be given statutory authority to conduct investigations or to compel other law enforcement agencies to investigate these crimes, it added.
It advised against use of the Pakistan Protection Ordinance under which journalists can be imprisoned for up to 90 days without charges for their reporting and urged the authorities to cease the practice of placing journalists on the Exit Control List over their reporting.
The CPJ asked for disclosure of the findings of all official inquiries into attacks on journalists and investigations into matters involving press freedom, including the inquiries into the attack on Hamid Mir and the `Dawn Leaks’ case.
Finally, the CPJ called for laws and regulations that guaranteed access to electronic and print news and take legal action against those who disrupt news distribution. When contacted, Information Minister Fawad Chaudhry challenged the CPJ’s report, saying the body had not explained as to what criteria it had adopted for preparation of its report.
The minister said the situation of freedom of expression in Pakistan was far better than many countries. However, he said, there was always room for improvement in it.
He asked the journalist bodies to bring to his notice any specific complaints and held out the assurance that the government would take necessary action in accordance with laws and the Constitution. https://www.dawn.com/news/1432628/freedom-of-press-on-the-decline-in-pakistan-warns-cpj
Handling threats to media: edit in Daily Times, September 13th 2018.
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) this week released a special report on the state of media freedom in this country. The crux of which is summarised in the title: “Acts of Intimidation: In Pakistan, journalists’ fear and censorship grow even as fatal violence declines”. As such, the findings do not throw up anything new for those working as part of the fourth estate. What it does provide, however, is a crucial and detailed overview for the new civilian set-up. All the while underscoring how a drop in the numbers of journalists killed in the line of duty is not, in reality, synonymous with a free media. Rather, it points to a double-edged sword.Through extensive interviews with journalists in all the country’s major urban centres as well as Okara, the report traces the strangling of press freedom to two distinct events some four years ago. Firstly, in 2014, veteran journalist Hamid Mir suffered an assassination attempt. His brother would later publicly accuse the deep state of being behind the attack. Secondly, at the end of that year came the Tehreek-e-Taliban (TTP) targeting of the Army Public School (APS) in Peshawar. This led to anti-terror operations. And while this resulted in some reprieve from militants that have long viewed the fourth estate as a ‘legitimate’ soft target — those charged with neutralising this threat soon became seen as posing a similar risk to media freedom through a campaign of intimidation and worse. Such practices were ‘aided’ by the Pakistan Protection Ordinance (PPO); providing for 90-day detention without charge.
The question boils down to this: who determines what constitutes anti-state activity as well as consensus on who may be a recognised target of this. As things currently stand, unbiased factual reporting has seemingly been falsely positioned as jeopardising national security concerns. Consequently, editors and news directors are now wont to opt for self-censorship in a bid to keep both they and their staff as safe as possible. Of course, nowhere in the world is the media left entirely to its own devices. And even where reporters adhere to established guidelines this does not safeguard them against being thrown in jail on trumped up allegations; as has been witnessed in Egypt, Turkey and India in recent times. But there is something amiss in a country where covering labour practices, especially in foreign-owned companies, is treated as insurrection.
The new government has still not fully woken up to these perils. Instead, it focuses on asking the fourth estate to afford it a three-month grace period before critiquing its performance. Or else, it pursues the merging of the respective regulatory authorities for print and electronic media into a single body. Whereas its most urgent priority ought, undoubtedly, to be protecting journalists while ensuring that the media as free as possible. Not least because the additional fear of blasphemy allegations is never far off for those deemed to have overstepped the mark. And then there is the matter of news outlets coming under double fire. That is, from militants on the one hand who threaten violent retribution if their statements and bloody acts are not extensively covered. To the security apparatus, on the other, which then accuses the fourth estate of glorifying extremism. This holds particularly true in restive areas such as Balochistan; where a separatist movement is being waged against the state. The new set-up must therefore place journalist security centre stage. For without this, any talk of instituting independent editorial policies becomes little more than white noise. https://dailytimes.com.pk/296941/handling-threats-to-media/
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