Moderate voices in Pakistan are silenced: Report

"We're definitely seeing a deliberate attempt to silence people. Scores of Pakistani journalists have asked for asylum, wanting us to arrange fellowships. Frankly, we're overwhelmed by it."

Journalist Atif was praying when men fired at him thrice, one of bullets
pierced his body and injured Imam also.

Ahmadiyya Times | News Watch | Int'l Desk
Source/Credit: Zee News | India
By PTI | January 22, 2012

London: Moderate voices in Pakistan are being silenced by the country's military intelligence arm, the ISI, and militant groups, a media report said on Sunday.

The murder of Mukarram Khan Atif, radio journalist, who worked for Voice of America, by the Pakistan Taliban last Tuesday was shocking in its brutality and brazenness, The Sunday Times said.

Atif was praying in his mosque near Peshawar just after sunset last Tuesday when two gunmen walked in, dragged him outside and shot him dead.

It was the latest killing in what many describe as a deliberate campaign by the ISI and militant groups to silence moderate voices amid a growing crisis between government and the country's powerful military.


MK, as Atif was known, who was shortly to re-marry, had been receiving death threats from militants who did not like his reporting and demanded space on his radio programmes, according to his colleague Babar Baig, but was "very bold and active".

"We're definitely seeing a deliberate attempt to silence people," Bob Dietz, Asia director of the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists, said.

"Scores of Pakistani journalists have asked for asylum, wanting us to arrange fellowships. Frankly, we're overwhelmed by it."

According to the report, not only has Pakistan been the deadliest country for journalists for the past two years but the last year has seen the killing of Salman Taseer, the Punjab governor and Shahbaz Bhatti, a government minister.

Taseer's son Shahzad has been missing since he was abducted last August.

Husain Haqqani, Pakistan's former ambassador to US, is in hiding in the prime minister's house, facing trial for treason on charges widely regarded as trumped up, the report said. He says his life is in danger.

His wife, Farahnaz Ispahani, President Asif Zardar's spokesman, has fled to Washington amid fears that ISI might kidnap her to force her husband to sign a confession and implicate the president.

"What we're seeing is the systematic killing or silencing of anyone who stands up to the institutionalisation of a militarised Islamist state, who advocates positive relations with the West or stands up for tolerance," she said.

"I'm scared. The government can't even protect itself." It is not just journalists who are at risk.

Ali Dayan Hasan, the Pakistan director of Human Rights Watch, had to move his family to Britain last year after threats to them.

Using children is another tactic fo intimidation. One journalist who reported on Kashmiri militants had his teenage son abducted as he left school more than a year ago. He says ISI is holding him, and his wife has been allowed a 10-minute visit. They are scared to go public in case the boy is killed.

Among those who have publicly raised the issue are Najam Sethi, editor of The Friday Times and host of a popular political television show and his wife and co-editor, Jugnu Mohsin.

After years of threats, the intimidation became so severe last year that they were forced to move to Washington for a couple of months.

"In the old days you'd get picked up, thrown into prison for a couple of months, may be roughed up, then let out. But now it's a whole different ball game - there's no second chance," Sethi told the newspaper.

The couple returned home to Lahore a month ago after his employers built a studio in their house so they would not need to go out, and the local government gave them eight round-the-clock police guards.

After a wave of accusations on social media sites that he and his daughter were CIA spies, Sethi decided to go public, describing the threats as "from both state and non-state actors, including extremists."

He said he had given specific information to media watchdogs at home and abroad "so if we were harmed they would know who had done it".

According to the report, a few weeks after Bin Laden's death, a reporter called Saleem Shahzad, who was investigating links between the military and al Qaeda, was abducted by ISI. A few days later, the 40-year-old father of three was found in a ditch, beaten to death.

An international outcry prompted a rare commission of inquiry, which released its report last week.

It apportioned no blame but stated: "The commission is convinced that there are sufficient reasons to believe that the agencies, including ISI, have been using coercive and intimidating tactics in dealing with journalists who antagonise the agency's interest. "

PTI


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