PAKISTAN: A senior journalist is missing after exposing the Al-Qaida network in the navy

Dear friends, 

The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has received information that a senior journalist of Asia Times, a Hong Kong-based news agency, was abducted by unidenfied persons from Islamabad, the capital city of Pakistan. Mr. Saleem Shahzad was going to a private television channel to give an interview on his revelation about the militants attack on a naval base at Karachi. It is suspected that he was abducted by officials of the intelligence agencies as in the past journalists have been picked up by the intelligence officials who want to know the source of their information particularly when it concerns military and Taliban activities. 

Mr. Shahzad’s article appeared on 27 May 2011 in the Asia Times and narrated the links between Al-Qaida and Pakistan Navy officials. The story was quite enough to expose the secret talks between the terrorist’s representatives and Navy officials for the release of some navy officers who were known to be operatives of Al-Qaida, the world’s most infamous terrorist organization. 

CASE NARRATIVE: 

Mr. Saleem Shahzad, Pakistan Bureau Chief of the Asia Times Online, an online news agency based in Hong Kong, was going to a private television channel, the Dunya News, to participate at a talk show in the programme, ‘In-Session’, on the issue of the terrorist attack on PNS Mehran Naval base Karachi. On Sunday, 29 May 2011, he left home at 5.30 in the evening to join the TV talk show but did not reach the station. Whenever the channel’s officials tried to contact him via his cell phone it was found to have been turned off. They also contacted his family members who confirmed that he had left for television station but could not be contacted. The next day his family members contacted many officials including the police. They also contacted the cell phone company and the records revealed that his cell phone was working up until 5.42 pm but was turned off after that. The company record was able to reveal that his mobile phone was stopped when he reached sector F-8/3 Islamabad, just 10 minutes drive from his home. The F/8 Police station has filed a report of his being missing. His car also has not been traced. At this time Shahzad’s whereabouts are unknown. 

The journalists and their organizations suspect that because of his story on the links between the navy officials and terrorists the intelligence agencies have picked him up to find out about his source of information. Please find his story published in the Asia Times Online on May 27. 

One media organization suspects that he might have been picked up by the Naval Intelligence who has been excessively nasty in the recent past. The website of Let Us Build Pakistan says that for instance, they personally intervened in the case of one chap working for a construction company building a house near the farm house of a senior retired vice admiral. Since the admiral got upset with stones falling in his driveway due to blasting he harassed one worker and tied him up in the dog kennel for a couple of hours. Later, the navy chief apologized to the people concerned but of course, not to the worker. Naval intelligence played a role in intimidating the people. 

The same case happened in 4 September 2010 when intelligence officials, ISI, personnel abducted a senior journalist, Mr. Umer Cheema, who worked at The News International. He was abducted from Islamabad and tortured to desist in publishing stories on sensitive issues. Cheema said that during the entire exercise, he remained handcuffed and blindfolded except when his head and moustache and eyebrows were being shaved and when he was being photographed. He was asked to pose naked poses for photographs. For further details, please see the previous urgent appeal regarding his case: AHRC-UAC-133-2011. 

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION: 

Shahzad is a famous journalist because of his researched-based investigative stories which were carried out from all over the world. He was once abducted, allegedly by a Pakistani intelligence network from the Helmond city of Afghanistan where he went to report the working of the Taliban and their network with Pakistani officials. He was released after many days by the pressure of international media organizations. He was told by the abductors to explain his absence as being lost the way in Afghanistan and could not contact outside the world. 

Shahzad has covered a variety of topics in his career, including global security issues, Pakistani armed forces, Islamic movements, and Muslim resistance movements in Lebanon and Iraq. The Taliban and Al-Qaida are the regular topics of his writing. He is an international journalist who travelled to Iran, Afghanistan, Iraq, Jordan, Germany, UK, USA, Lebanon, UAE, Thailand, Brussels, Italy and Syria. He also writes for publications like Le Monde Diplomatique (France), La Stampa (Italy) and Dawn (Pakistan). He is the South Asia Correspondent for the Italian news agency Adnkronos International (AKI). His opinion pieces appear in Qatar-based Islamonline.net, beside Boston Review. 

SUGGESTED ACTION: 
Please write letters to the authorities about the abduction and forced disappearance of Saleem Shahzad asking for his immediate release. Please urge them to initiate an inquiry into the matter of the abduction of journalists from the capital of the country to intimidate them and keep them incommunicado. Please also urge them to prosecute those persons who are responsible for this act. 

The AHRC writes a separate letter to the UN Working Group on Enforced Disappearances calling for their intervention into this matter. 

To support this case, please click here: SEND APPEAL LETTER