Attacks on the Press - Committee to Protect Journalists

Gen. David Petraeus, commander of U.S. Central Command, reportedin September a 60 percent increase in violence in Afghanistan over the prior year,although he told the Infantry Warfighting Conference that it was “a heck of alot less than the height of violence in Iraq.” <strong>Attacks</strong> in the capital, Kabul, wererare before 2008, but since that time a dozen major assaults were reported in thecity, including attacks by a range of militant groups on the German Embassy, theheadquarters for the NATO-led force, the Information Ministry and the JusticeMinistry buildings, as well as other targets near the U.S. Embassy, presidentialpalace, and airport.In late year, more than 71,000 NATO troops making up the InternationalSecurity Assistance Force (ISAF) were going up against a wide array of militantgroups including hard-line Taliban and Al-Qaeda fighters, criminal gangs, anddrug traffickers, all operating in a country without a strong central government—in many ways a scenario reminiscent of Iraq.Robert Reid, a veteran Associated Press journalist who has served as bureauchief in Kabul and Baghdad, told CPJ in October that “we don’t hear the hourlyexplosions or the heavy nighttime bursts of gunfire that were fixtures of life in Baghattackson the press in 2009asia: analysisJuly, they complained of persistent harassment from the military once the regulararmy launched operations within the North West Frontier Province.Journalists in foreign news bureaus said they were taking more precautions.“We are certainly more security conscious than ever,” said Carol Grisanti, leadA U.S. producer says she relieson her local crew to ‘go italone’ in certain areas.producer in Islamabad for theU.S. television network NBC.“New York has to sign off onany trips outside of Islamabadand weigh the safety risks beforegoing to cover the story.” As of late year, Grisanti said, NBC had not seen theneed to hire a private security firm as many organizations did in Iraq.“We definitely rely more on our local crew to go it alone inside the NorthWest Frontier Province,” said Grisanti, who said she and other NBC staffers hadonce accompanied local reporters on such trips. With NBC’s foreign desk in NewYork worried about the local staff ’s safety, she said, “I need to run all trips by themfor safety concerns and then get their approval.”Those concerns were underscored in December when a suicide bomber setoff an explosive device as he tried to enter the grounds of the Peshawar PressClub. Four people were killed—including a police constable who had stopped thebomber at the gate—while 26 were injured. About 30 journalists were inside theclub for a press conference.dad for years. Nor do we have to contend with the hard divisions in the city thatwe used to face in Beirut in the 1980s.” The capital was getting tougher, he said, but“Westerners can still move about in most of Kabul as long as they maintain a situationalawareness and avoid certain areas of the city, especially at night.”Coverage decisions outside the capital, however, were riskier. “There are wideareas of the country that are no-go areas. I wouldn’t send a Westerner by car toKandahar, like we were able to do in 2002, nor to Kunduz, Kunar, Paktia, andPaktika. We don’t make any trips outside of Kabul without checking first with theAfghan police, the U.N., ISAF, and some of the security companies. All of thatdoes require greater use of Afghan journalists than a few years ago,” Reid said.In interviews withjournalists stationed inother foreign news bureausin Kabul, it was clear thatall had taken heightenedAbductions in Afghanistantarget Western journalists butendanger local reporters, too.security precautions, though not to the same extent as was done in Iraq. OneU.S. journalist, who did not want to be named because the person did not wantto appear critical of an employer, said Kabul would not resemble Baghdad in partbecause news budgets were tight. “Of course we’re more security conscious, wehave to be,” the journalist said. “But we’re also under pressure to keep costs down.If things get worse, I don’t know what the plan will be: More security, or less coverage?Maybe both?”International journalists reflect an unusually high proportion of media fatalitiesin Afghanistan, according to CPJ research. Eleven of the 17 journalistskilled in Afghanistan between 2001 and 2009 were foreign reporters andphotographers. That’s far above the worldwide proportion: CPJ data show thatabout 15 percent of journalists killed in any given country are international reporters.Casualties from militants’ increasing use of roadside bombs underlinedthe risk. The death of the Canadian journalist Lang in late December followedseveral other cases in which roadside bombs injured media workers. CBS reporterCami McCormick was wounded while embedded with U.S. troops inAugust; a similar strike, also in August, injured Associated Press cameramanEmilio Morenatti and photographer Andi Jatmiko.A string of abductions also seemed to highlight the risk to Western reporters.The captives included La Repubblica’s Daniele Mastrogiacomo in 2007; the CBC’sMellissa Fung, Dutch writer Joanie de Rijke, British journalist Sean Langan, andNew York Times reporter David Rohde in 2008; and the Times’ Farrell and twounidentified French TV journalists in 2009. All but the French reporters escapedor gained their release, but observers also saw in these cases the grave risks to localreporters: Mastrogiacomo’s fixer, local reporter Ajmal Naqshbandi, and driver,110111