Press for Freedom
An emasculated press, with many dead or missing journalists, means that the world hears little of the human tragedy in Balochistan.
In her piece on Pakistan at the BBC, Lyse Doucet talks about the fears, hopes and the insecurity of a people living their lives from crisis to crisis in a nation that forever seems to be on the verge of imploding. She says:
You hear a lot about Pakistan in the news… but you don’t hear enough about Pakistanis in the news.
She goes on to talk about her meetings with a journalist and a fashion designer in the city of Lahore in Punjab. Both talk about the pockets of positivism in a nation that seems to be at war with itself.
Lahore however, does not Pakistan make. Doucet further makes a mention of the press in Pakistan:
A recent report by the Committee to Protect Journalists described Pakistan as one of the world’s deadliest nations for the press. Killers operate with impunity. There has not been a single conviction for the murder of more than 20 journalists in the last decade
This seemingly innocuous statistics hides a gruesome history of torture, murder and disappearances of journalists in Pakistan’s biggest province, Balochistan. Close to 22 journalists have been attacked, tortured and killed in the past decade in Pakistan. 13 cases of murdered journalists have been reported since 2008, many more have simply disappeared. But there is one factor common to them. Almost all of them either come from Balochistan or report on that strife-ravaged province.
Caught between a ruthless military and a resilient Baloch nationalist movement, journalists in Balochistan have little freedom to report on the latest episode of the crisis that has been unfolding for over a decade now. They are either blamed for peddling Pakistan’s message to a province struggling for autonomy or blamed for fomenting unrest and supporting Baloch separatist sentiments. Independent newspapers, bloggers and online channels have to risk — and often pay with their lives — to make their voices heard and bring attention to the humanitarian crisis in Balochistan. Their struggle to highlight the plight of a province where extra judicial killings and disappearances at the hands of Pakistan Army and the Frontier Corps have become commonplace has found very little support outside Balochistan.
This report from Reporters Without Borders gives an idea of what the press has to go through in Balochistan.
Baloch journalist Javid Lehri was held and tortured by military police, while Baloch businessman Munir Mengal was secretly detained for nearly two years by military intelligence for trying to set up the satellite television channel Baloch Voice.
Most Pakistani newspapers pay little attention to the human tragedy in Balochistan and the news that comes out of the province is often censored and highly biased. Reporters based out of Balochistan are given very little access to the province outside of Quetta, the provincial capital. There are bans and diktats on the kind of news that can be reported out of Balochistan. Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists, along with the International Federation of Journalists has brought out a comprehensive report with concrete suggestions to ensure journalists don’t become a dying breed in the province.
International support to highlight these issues and support measures to ensure free and fair press reports can go a long way. While the UN has condemned the murders and called out the government for the ever tightening noose around the press, a lot more has to be done by the international community to bring attention to the crisis. Multilateral organisations, western donors and international groups must apply pressure on Pakistani government to ensure that the police and courts complete the investigation into the deaths of the journalists and prosecute the killers.
It is duty of the journalists to make sure that the world doesn’t forget about Balochistan. But as long as journalists themselves are being killed and forgotten, the chances of the human tragedy in Balochistan being heard remains slim.
