Attacks on the Press - Committee to Protect Journalists

attacks on the press in 2009asia: pakistanNeither offensive was militarily conclusive, and the response from the militants’side was a horrific round of suicide explosions, car bombs, and armed attacks.After the military moved into South Waziristan in October, insurgent attacksincluded a suicide bombing at the U.N. World Food Program in Islamabad;an assault on the General Headquarters of the Pakistan Army; the murders of abrigadier general and education minister; several market bombings in the northwesterncity of Peshawar, the worst of which took 100 lives; and a suicide bombingon a Peshawar office used by Pakistan’s main intelligence agency. The armyblamed most of the attacks on the Tehreek-e-Taliban, the group led by HakimullahMehsud that it was battling in South Waziristan.In July, CPJ traveled to Islamabad and Peshawar to meet with journalistscovering the military offensive in the Swat Valley. About 260 local reporters wereforced along with about 2 million others from the general population to flee thecombat areas, according to the Khyber Union of Journalists. Some stayed behind,but their coverage was severely limited by the fighting and by threats of reprisalfrom militants. The homes of at least six journalists were leveled by militants inretribution for critical reporting. Much of the front-line coverage was handled byPakistani reporters from outside the region who had embedded with the military.They encountered the limitations that embedding implies: skewed viewpoints,self-imposed censorship, and outright military control of information. Video washeavily censored; coverage of destruction caused by army shelling, for example,was banned.Calling its operation “Rah-e-Rast” (or “Back on Track”), the military focusedits efforts on the NWFP’s Malakand Division. In recent years indigenous localmilitant groups with links to the tribal areas had succeeded in establishingcontrol and abrogating peace treaties with successive Islamabad governments. Atone point, militant groups were in control of areas only 60 miles (100 kilometers)from the capital. Journalists described the fighting in the Swat Valley as a“protracted low-intensity conflict,” and several said militants continued patrollingin their hometowns months after the government had claimed success. (Severalnoted in the next breath that they would not dare report the militant presencein bylined news stories for fear of retribution.) “We still receive anonymous telephonecalls, we still receive hand-written letters from the militants,” said SherShamseen Shah, president of the Peshawar Press Club. The risks facing reportersin the NWFP came into sharp relief in December when a suicide bomber set offan explosive as he tried to enter the Peshawar Press Club. Four people were killed,including a club employee and a police constable. Roughly 30 journalists wereinside for a press conference when the bomb exploded.The second military offensive, this into Waziristan, began in mid-October,with two army divisions totaling about 28,000 troops backed by local FrontierCorps members who joined when fighting came to their hometowns. The BBCand others estimated the Taliban to number between 10,000 and 20,000, withseveral hundred hardened ethnic Uzbek fighters adding support. By the end ofOctober, the army was restricting reporters’ access to the fighting, which localresidents, relaying news by telephone, said had been fierce.The military did not allow reporters to embed in Waziristan until late year.“They don’t like to take reporters into areas until the hard part of the fighting isover,” Mazhar Abbas, deputy news director at ARY News, told CPJ. With little orno access, local reporters used phones to maintain contact with sources and witnesses.“In Waziristan, even the local stringers aren’t reporting from there. Theyget telephone reports, but they are not there to witness the fighting—the armytold them to clear out of the conflict area,” Abbas said.Journalists told CPJ that the Pakistani military, while making some improvementsin media relations, lagged well behind the Taliban in terms of accessibilityand disseminating information. “The Taliban need the media, too,” Abbas noted.“They are using text messagingt o p developments»»Press has very limited access duringtwo military offensives.»»Reporters face attacks, threats fromall sides. Four are killed.6key statisticHomes of journalists destroyedby militants in retaliatory attacks.more than ever to push informationto journalists.” Having wagedan insurgent-style war for morethan two decades, first againstthe Russians and now NATO,the Taliban were media savvy, ifhardly media friendly.Journalists were hard-pressedto cover this exceptionally dangerous,logistically challenging story,which was unfolding on multiplefronts. Baluchistan, where Talibanoperating in Afghanistan tended to congregate, was removed from the fiercestactivity, but there, too, reporters were beaten, obstructed, and threatened. “TheBaluch nationalists often dictate to us that their reports should be published insuch and such a manner,” Razaur Rahman, editor of the Daily Express, told theInternational Federation of Journalists.Four journalists lost their lives in 2009, one of them during the Swat Valleymilitary offensive. Janullah Hashimzada, who worked for Shamshad TV, an Afghanstation, was killed in the Khyber Agency in August when three gunmen ina passing car fired at the Afghan journalist and his colleague, Ali Khan, while theywere traveling on a public minibus near the town of Jamrud. Hashimzada, the station’sPeshawar-based bureau chief for Pakistan, also reported for The AssociatedPress, the Pajhwok Afghan News agency, and other news outlets. No one claimed132133