by Meena Menon
The attacks on these high-profile journalists shattered illusions of a free and fair media. Hamid used to come often to Parliament and he would be besieged by people who wanted to be photographed with him. He was clearly in the know about everything the government did, much more than others, and was full of juicy details on the talks with the TTP, which he wrote about later in the News. Hamid was earlier the editor of Ausaf, a publication which had fundamentalist leanings, and people whispered that he was shot for his past omissions.
Hours after the attack, in a highly unexpected move, his brother, author and journalist, Amir Mir, alleged on TV that the ISI chief, Lt. Gen. Zaheer-ul-Islam was behind the attack. However, many in the media felt that it was improper to make such allegations without proof or proper investigation. Hamid was on his way to his office in Karachi from the airport in the evening. He was sitting in the back seat of the car and the shots were fired into his stomach and pelvic area. It was the presence of mind shown by his driver that saved his life. Hamid’s driver, interviewed by Geo TV, said the gunmen were waiting at the Natha Khan flyover a little distance away from the airport; the attack began when he slowed down and was about to turn right on to the main road. He said he saw one man firing at the back of the car but didn’t stop to look and sped away to the hospital. Recuperating in the hospital, Hamid’s statement which was read out by his brother spoke of threats from both state and non-state actors. He had been told by intelligence officials that he was on a hit list and that the ISI was miffed with his coverage of the Long March from Quetta. He had given the police telephone numbers from which he received threats, but nothing was done. No arrest was made in an earlier case in November 2012 when, in Islamabad, a bomb had been found fitted to his car; this was discovered and defused by the bomb disposal squad. The TTP had taken responsibility for that. Later, he appeared before a judicial commission appointed to inquire into the attack on 19 April 2014. The empire struck back by issuing notices to Geo and later its transmission was suspended for a while.
Hamid openly supported Mama Qadeer’s march and was among the few, including the scientist and educationist Pervez Hoodbhoy, who dared to walk with the marchers before they reached Islamabad. Hamid has been awarded the highest civilian honour, the Hilal-e-Imtiaz, and is the popular host of Capital Talk on TV. Amir Mir said that two weeks before the shooting, his brother had sent a videotaped message to the US-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), saying that if there was an attack on him, the ISI chief was to be held responsible. He said his brother was under threat from the time of the ISI chief, Shuja Pasha.
There was an understated element of integrity in Amir Mir’s broadcast. He and his brother were the sons of Professor Waris Mir, a Mohajir—a term to describe families that came from India in 1947—and they chose the profession of journalism and no one could stop them from carrying out their mission. Hamid’s video to the CPJ had clearly put the onus on Lt. Gen. Zaheer-ul-Islam in the event of an attack on him and he had also told some close friends and associates about this. The ISI was upset with his stand on the Balochistan issue and the trial of General Musharraf, besides his views on the military and its role, Amir said. The attack on his brother was planned and the attackers knew he was going to Karachi and the route he was taking.
Amnesty’s report said it was not in a position to assess the claims of the Mir family. However, the CPJ did tell Amnesty that Hamid had frequently contacted them about death threats over the last several years he was receiving from individuals and groups he believed were associated with the ISI. The CPJ said it had not received any video or other message from Hamid to the effect that the ISI or specific individuals should be held responsible if he were to be killed.
Journalists faced a range of threats in Pakistan, including from civil and military state organs such as the police and security forces, according to Amnesty. But no state actor is more feared by journalists than the ISI. Amnesty’s investigation of cases shows journalists are particularly at risk of harassment and abuse if they expose security lapses by the military, its alleged links to armed groups, human rights violations by the security forces in Balochistan and north-west Pakistan; or work for foreign media outlets considered by the state to be hostile to Pakistan.
A little over three weeks before Rumi was attacked, a journalist in Mansehra in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa was shot at and he later died in hospital. Abrar Tanoli, a photographer and writer, was also travelling in his car when he was attacked. Express Tribune’s partnership with the International New York Times could have been another reason for the constant threat. In its edition of 22–23 March 2014, the weekend International New York Times—distributed along with the Express Tribune—had a huge blank section on its front page. The article that was blanked out was ‘What Pakistan Knew About Bin Laden’ by journalist Carlotta Gall which had appeared earlier in other editions on the front page and was online. The article (an extract from her book),10 is continued on page two but in the edition in Islamabad, there was a full-page advertisement for the Express Tribune, which is the paper’s partner. It is printed in three cities in Pakistan.
Gall’s article says:
Soon after the Navy SEAL raid on Bin Laden’s house, a Pakistani official told me that the United States had direct evidence that the ISI chief, Lt. Gen. Ahmed Shuja Pasha, knew of Bin Laden’s presence in Abbottabad. The information came from a senior United States official, and I guessed that the Americans had intercepted a phone call of Pasha’s or one about him in the days after the raid. ‘He knew of Osama’s whereabouts, yes,’ the Pakistani official told me. The official was surprised to learn this and said the Americans were even more so. Pasha had been an energetic opponent of the Taliban and an open and cooperative counterpart for the Americans at the ISI. ‘Pasha was always their blue-eyed boy,’ the official said. But in the weeks and months after the raid, Pasha and the ISI press office strenuously denied that they had any knowledge of Bin Laden’s presence in Abbottabad.
The director general of the ISPR said the allegations of Gall were baseless and ridiculous; there was nothing new and credible, and all speculations had already been proven false. Intelligence sources also said there was no truth in the New York Times report.
A week before the attack on Rumi, Kati Marton, the trustee of the CPJ met Prime Minister Sharif and was appreciative of his willingness to listen to the problems of journalists working in Pakistan. Ironically, that was the time our visas were cancelled. The CPJ did a fine job of taking up the issue and issuing strong statements. I did meet Kati Marton, who was married to the late US special ambassador for Pakistan and Afghanistan, Richard Holbrooke, at a reception hosted by the US Ambassador Richard Olson at his residence. She was very optimistic about Sharif’s intentions. The CPJ team asked him to review the expulsion of Walsh and also expedite visas for foreign journalists—to which he seemed willing. He also committed to making the country a safe place for journalists. But I knew this optimism would not lead to anything in our case.
The TTP uses its guerrilla tactics with live media as well, and one day it managed to disrupt a show on Express TV where its eponymous spokesperson managed to extract an assurance from the TV anchor that the coverage would be balanced. The hapless anchor, in return, demanded protection for his colleagues. In 2012, the TTP had put up on its website a hit list of media houses and journalists, and after the attack on Rumi, initial TV reports rather pointlessly focused on whether he was on this list or not.
While the killers of Geo TV journalist Wali Khan Babar (in 2012 in Liaquatabad, Karachi) were convicted, the CPJ noted in its 2013 report that Pakistan had one of the world’s worst records of impunity in anti-press violence. ‘This perfect record of impunity has fostered an ever-more violent climate for journalists. Fatalities have jumped in the past five years, and today, Pakistan ranks among the world’s deadliest nations for the press.’ It added that the targeted killings of two journalists—Wali Khan Babar in Karachi and Mukarram Khan Aatif in the tribal areas—illustrated
the culture of manipulation, intimidation and retribution that led to this killing spree.
Sixty journalists in Pakistan were killed from 1992–201711 and in 2014, the country shared number one position with the Democratic Republic of Congo, Afghanistan, Mexico and Ukraine for the deaths of journalists. However, in 2016, it was sixth in terms of journalists killed since 1992, with Iraq and Syria topping the list.12 On CPJ’s Impunity Index, 2016,13 Pakistan ranked eighth, with twenty-one journalists killed with complete impunity in the past decade. ‘In March 2016, a court sentenced one defendant to life in prison and a fine for the 2013 shooting of crime reporter Ayub Khattak. One other case from the past decade, the 2011 murder of television journalist Wali Khan Babar, has met with partial justice. No suspects have been prosecuted in the 2014 attacks on prominent journalists Hamid Mir and Raza Rumi, neither of which were fatal.’14
Of the seventy-four cases investigated for the Amnesty report, in only two of these have the perpetrators been convicted; these were for the killing of Wali Khan Babar (in 2011) and the Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl (in 2002). Police or other authorities carried out an initial investigation in thirty-six cases, and in a handful of incidents, victims or their families received security protection, compensation or other assistance from the state.
Even if the culprits are arrested and the trial gets under way, the obstacles are many. On 1 March 2014, four men were convicted of killing Wali Khan, and were sentenced to life imprisonment. During the trial, eight persons, including two witnesses and a prosecutor, were killed. Two other accused were absconding. This was the first conviction in a journalist’s death after Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh was convicted of Pearl’s murder. The government makes the right noises after a journalist is killed or attacked but there is little follow-up.
Impunity is the norm for attacks on journalists and in the overwhelming majority of cases investigated by Amnesty International, the Pakistani authorities failed to carry out prompt, impartial, independent and thorough investigations into human rights abuses against journalists or to bring those responsible to justice. Pakistan has a reputation for having a fearless and vibrant media. Despite this or perhaps because of it, it is one of the most dangerous countries in the world, judging by the frequency and range of harassment and abuse journalists face, said Amnesty in its 2014 report. (The HRCP said that in 2013 Internet curbs grew and YouTube was not unblocked and other websites were blocked without prior intimation.)
In its 2015 report on attacks on journalists, the CPJ did not list Pakistan as among the top-ten censored countries worldwide; it was upstaged by Eritrea, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Cuba and China. After the Lahore bombing in March 2016, which killed seventy-two, the media was openly threatened in a tweet. Jamaat-ur-Ahrar, the Taliban faction that claimed responsibility for the blast aimed at Christians celebrating Easter, warned Pakistani media that they could be the next target.
‘Everyone will get their turn in this war, especially the slave Pakistani media,’ Ehsanullah Ehsan, spokesperson for the group, tweeted. ‘We are just waiting for the appropriate time.’15
Facing off with ISI
It is not usual for the ISI to be named publicly in an attack even though fingers point that way. After the attempted murder of Hamid Mir, Zaheer-ul-Islam, the ISI chief, had the ignominy of having his face on TV for hours on end (I think it was seven), while so-called experts indulged in intense haranguing alongside. It was open season and I can be forgiven for thinking that more than the grievous attack on Hamid, it was the allegation made so publicly that caught everyone by surprise. While people privately held the ISI responsible for many barbarous crimes, no one actually had spelt it out so loudly and clearly. The ISPR spokesperson was guarded: ‘Raising allegations against the ISI or the head of ISI without any basis is highly regrettable and misleading.’
The stage was set for a confrontation of no mean proportion. The government hit below the belt by suspending Geo’s licence for months; it first made sure that the channel was blacked out and the newspapers from the Jang Group were not distributed. There was an abject apology on the front page of the News as well two days after the attack on Hamid, on 19 April 2014. The statement said it had not put the blame on any institution or its section. ‘The Jang Group values and respects all institutions. All including the accused must be presumed innocent till proven guilty.’
Driving through ‘Blue Area’ a week after the attack on Hamid, I was surprised to see posters proclaiming great love for the Pakistan Army. Fluttering on each lamp post, the posters had the ISI DG’s photo with the slogan ‘Pakistan loves Army’. The point they were making was unambiguous. It shouldn’t have come as a surprise, especially after protests in major cities in solidarity with the ISI led by the Sunni Ittehad Council (SIC), the Mohajir Qaumi Movement-Haqiqi (MQM-H), the Ahle Sunnat Wal Jamaat (ASWJ) and others. Geo TV got the flak roundly for its attack on the ISI, and the protestors demanded an apology.
Predictably, Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD) was among the groups which put up the posters supporting the Pakistan Army. The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf and other political parties organized a protest, ironically on World Press Freedom Day. I reported that some political parties like the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, and outfits like the JuD were defending the army and the ISI, and saying that Geo should not have carried such a campaign. I called Mariana Babar, diplomatic correspondent of the News, who had worked in the regime of Zia-ul-Haq, for a sane voice in this chaos. A seasoned journalist and keen observer of the Pakistani political theatre, she felt that the ISI taking on the media was not something new. When she started her career under the military rule of Zia-ul-Haq, things had been more or less the same. The situation appeared as if the country had regressed to the 1980s and nothing had changed over the years, she said, adding that the media, especially the electronic one, should show greater responsibility while reporting news.
While everyone thought that other institutions in Pakistan had become strong like the media, judiciary and civil society, Babar said as soon as they stepped on the toes of the army, it hit back to show that it was still a sacred institution. The army remained powerful and possessive about its space, she said.
On the day after the attack on Hamid, I read the morning papers, and was shocked to find that except for the News most other English newspapers had played down the incident and the allegations by Amir Mir; instead, in an incredible show of pusillanimity, they had highlighted the ISPR statement. I thought they had decided that discretion was the better part of valour. The defence ministry sent an application to the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA) demanding the suspension of licence to the company, Independent Media Corporation, which runs Geo, and it went off-air in some areas. Vendors stopped distributing the News and Jang papers. After some reports that Geo had been taken off-air in May, it was actually in June 2014 that the PEMRA officially suspended the channel’s licence for fifteen days and imposed a PKR 10-million fine in response to a complaint from the defence ministry. It also warned Geo that if there were more violations, its licence could be revoked.16 Geo TV was launched in 2002 and is the most-watched channel in Pakistan. Justice was swift in this case, but not so in apprehending Hamid’s attackers. I learnt later that Geo paid the fine.
There are few who have not condemned the attack on Hamid but the vindication of the ISI was ferocious. Even a self-confessed critic of the ISI, like Senator Aitzaz Ahsan, said in the Senate, ‘Let us not rush to form a judgement and we cannot blame the head of an institution of which I have been a severest critic. The [judicial] commission should complete its inquiry and till then everyone should show some restraint and balance.’ Privately many in the media felt that Geo had overstepped its limits and a barely concealed hostility surfaced between Geo and the other channels. The media ranks were in disarray and the hostility to Geo took another turn when the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf Chairperson Imran Khan called for a boycott of Geo for its alleged support for rigging elections. He also gave detai
ls of foreign funding (read Indian) to Geo, and demanded an investigation.
The ISPR brazened out the allegations and the ignominy by condemning the attack on Hamid, and called for an independent inquiry to ascertain the facts. I realized that even a powerful group like Jang had no option but to apologize. Many people I spoke to felt that an investigation must first be carried out to determine the facts before going public with accusations.
Squeezed between the Taliban, the army, intelligence and the security agencies, press freedom was not really guaranteed, but the journalists were brave enough to write what they wanted and criticize when necessary and speak out against the Taliban, the ISI and their unholy nexus. Yes, they bowed occasionally to diktats from the Taliban or the ISI, but overall, I think they were a strong, critical force, and as the Amnesty report said, that was also the reason they were under fire. I also like their novelists who have written evocatively about the contemporary situation. Fiction writers like Mohammed Hanif, H.M. Naqvi, Mohsin Hamid, Saba Imtiaz, Jamil Ahmad, Bilal Tanweer and Moni Mohsin give you the real picture, and while truth is often stranger than fiction, in Pakistan fiction has to wrestle with the truth which is in itself unpalatable at times.
Exceptions to the rule
Despite the overall secrecy on defence and nuclear matters, there were occasional bouts of openness for Indian correspondents. Two events stood out for me. First, in 2008, both the Indian journalists were invited for a briefing by the sacred Strategic Plans Division (SPD) which handles the operation, maintenance and security of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons programme. And second, the ISPR actually took an Indian journalist, Anita Joshua, to Siachen Glacier after the massive landslide in 2012. It was the then ISPR head, Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas, who took this decision and I learnt later that some of the army officers in Siachen were reluctant to share a presentation in front of an Indian, but Abbas brushed aside their objections.
