CPJ.Pakistan.Roots.of.Impunity

prompting the official to flee, according to news reports.
Although Javed eventually returned, the murder charges
were never revived, according to Kiran Nazish, a journalist
who has studied anti-press attacks in Pakistan.
Allah Noor, Khyber TV
Amir Nowab, Associated Press Television News
and Frontier Post
February 7, 2005, in Wana
Gunmen in South Waziristan fatally shot Allah Noor,
a journalist for Peshawar-based Khyber TV, and
Amir Nowab, a freelance cameraman for Associated
Press Television News and a reporter for the Frontier
Post newspaper. The journalists were riding with colleagues
in a bus transporting them from the town of
Sararogha, where they had covered the surrender of a
suspected tribal militant, Baitullah Mehsud.
A car overtook the bus about 7:30 p.m. near the town
of Wana, and assailants opened fire with AK-47 assault
rifles, according to The Associated Press, which quoted
Mahmood Shah, chief of security for Pakistan’s tribal
areas bordering Afghanistan. Two other journalists riding
in the bus were injured. Anwar Shakir, a stringer for
Agence France-Presse, was wounded in the back during
the attack, according to news reports. Dilawar Khan,
who was working for Al-Jazeera, suffered minor injuries.
Nowab was also known professionally as Mir Nawab.
Days later, a group calling itself Sipah-e-Islam, or
Soldiers of Islam, claimed responsibility for the killings in
a letter faxed to newspapers. It accused some journalists
of “working for Christians” and of “being used as tools in
negative propaganda ... against the Muslim mujahideen.”
Local journalists blamed officials for not doing more
at the time of the murders. They said no attempt was
made to stop the gunmen’s vehicle even though the
attack took place in an area under government control.
They also said no real investigation into the murders
took place.
The Pakistani military had begun an offensive
against suspected Al-Qaeda fighters in South Waziristan
in early 2004.
Munir Ahmed Sangi, Kawish Television Network
May 29, 2006, in Larkana
Sangi, a cameraman for the Sindhi-language channel,
was shot while covering a gunfight between
members of the Unar and Abro tribes in the town of
Larkana, in southeast Pakistan’s Sindh district, according
to local media reports. At least one other person
was killed in the clash, which Sangi recorded before he
died. The station broadcast his video.
Police said Sangi was killed in crossfire, although
some colleagues believe he might have been deliberately
targeted for the station’s reporting on a jirga,
or tribal council, held by leaders of the Unar tribe,
according to the Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists.
An uncle and colleague of Sangi had recently been
attacked in connection with the station’s reports that
two children had been punished by the tribal court,
the journalist union said.
Mazhar Abbas, then the secretary-general of the
journalist union, said Sangi’s body was not recovered
for several hours after he was shot. Journalists in
Larkana staged a sit-in to protest the killing of their
colleague.
The independent Human Rights Commission of
Pakistan said Sangi had received threats in connection
with his coverage of alleged abuses by Altaf Hussain
Unar, a provincial minister. The Sindh Home Department
said that four people were arrested after Sangi’s
death and that three police officials were suspended.
Unar was arrested in a separate case in 2008, but was
not charged in relation to the killing of Sangi.
Despite the initial arrests, the suspects were never
brought to trial, according to Hadi Sangi, brother of the
slain journalist, and court documents reviewed by CPJ.
Hadi Sangi also said that he and his brother’s widow,
Reshman Sangi, had received repeated threats.
Hayatullah Khan, freelance
June 16, 2006, in Miran Shah
Khan’s body was found by villagers in the North
Waziristan town of Miran Shah, where he had been
kidnapped six months earlier. Khan was abducted on
December 5, 2005, by five gunmen who ran his car off
the road as his younger brother, Haseenullah, watched
helplessly. Local government officials and family members
said Khan, 32, had been found handcuffed and
shot several times. His body appeared frail and he had
grown a long beard since he was last seen, Pakistani
journalists told CPJ.
The day before his abduction, Khan photographed
what apparently were the remnants of a U.S.-made
missile said to have struck a house in Miran Shah
on December 1, 2005, killing senior Al-Qaeda figure
Hamza Rabia. The pictures, widely distributed by the
European Pressphoto Agency on the day they were
shot, contradicted the Pakistani government’s explanation
that Rabia had died in a blast caused by explosives
within the house. International news media identified
the fragments in the photographs as part of a Hellfire
missile, possibly fired from a U.S. drone.
Khan, who was also a reporter for the Urdulanguage
daily Ausaf, had received numerous threats
from Pakistani security forces, Taliban members, and
local tribesmen because of his reporting.
During Khan’s six-month disappearance, government
officials provided his family with numerous and
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