Amnesty slams Pak authorities, ISI for allowing attacks on media

Amnesty International, the reputed global human rights watchdog, today called on Pakistan's to investigate Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), the country's powerful spy agency, for human rights abuses against journalists.

The call by Amnesty follows a spate of attacks on newspaper reporters. A report published by the organisation highlights the threat the country's media faces, including from political parties, Islamist insurgents and its own intelligence agencies.

At least 34 journalists have been killed in Pakistan as a direct consequence of their work since 2008 and eight have been killed in the past 11 months since Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif was elected to power in May 2013, Amnesty said.

"A critical step will be for Pakistan to investigate its own military and intelligence agencies and ensure that those responsible for human rights violations against journalists are brought to justice," David Griffiths, Amnesty's deputy Asia-Pacific director, said in Islamabad. "This will send a powerful signal to those who target journalists that they no longer have free reign."

The Amnesty report came after a top political talk show host was shot and wounded in Karachi earlier this month. Hamid Mir has survived, but his employer, the privately-owned Geo News television channel, has accused the ISI of orchestrating the attack.

The army has denied the allegations and demanded that the channel be shut down.

Weeks earlier, another TV anchor, Raza Rumi, was attacked in Lahore. He has since fled to the United States.

Amnesty's report is based on research into over 70 cases where journalists have been targeted for their reporting.

According to Amnesty, the pressure on journalists comes from a range of organisations, including the ISI and other intelligence agencies as well as the Karachi-based Muttahida Qaumi Movement political party, the Pakistani Taliban and the sectarian militant outfit Lashkar-e-Jhangvi.

Despite the violence, Pakistani authorities have largely failed to hold perpetrators to account, Amnesty said.

Out of the 74 cases looked into, authorities investigated only 34, while court proceedings were brought against alleged perpetrators in six cases. Perpetrators were convicted in two cases.

The US-based Committee to Protect Journalists in 2014 ranked Pakistan as the fourth most dangerous country in the world for journalists. Reporters Without Borders placed it 158 out of 167 countries in its 2014 World Press Freedom Index.
 
"Journalists, in particular those covering national security issues or human rights, are targeted from all sides in a disturbing pattern of abuses carried out to silence their reporting," Griffiths said.

Media intimidation figures for India, Pakistan's inimical neighbour, may of course not be much better; but one must await an India-specific study before one can seriously comment on that.