(April 15, 2010) “It is playing with death to work as a journalist in Bajaur,” a journalist in this Tribal Area told Reporters Without Borders after yesterday’s attempted abduction of one of his colleagues, Imran Khan, in Khar, a town in Bajaur. Khan and his sister were both seriously injured when resisting the kidnap attempt by armed militants.
“We firmly condemn targeted violence against journalists in the Tribal Areas,” Reporters Without Borders said. The Taliban leaders must give a clear undertaking not to target journalists while the army must provide the media with better security guarantees in both the Tribal Areas and Balochistan, where the situation is currently worsening.”
Around 10 gunmen tried to abduct Khan from his home in Khar. Witnesses said they managed to escape “purely by chance.” They are currently hospitalized in Peshawar.
Their father, Muhammad Ibrahim Khan, who was also a journalist, was fatally shot on 22 May 2008 as he was returning from interviewing a Taliban spokesman. Several journalists from Bajaur said they thought the people responsible for their fathers murder were also behind yesterdays kidnap attempt.
Recently, Azam Tariq, a spokesman for the Pakistani Taliban, accused the “pro-American media of spreading disinformation about the Taliban.”
The army claims to have been in control of Bajaur since last month, but several journalists have recently left the region after being threatened by insurgents. We receive threats, sometimes death threats, Reporters Without Borders was told by a journalist who has stayed. “The government is aware of this but no action has been taken to make us feel safer.”
In February, insurgent threats forced state-owned Radio Pakistan to stop retransmitting Pashto-language programmes produced by the Voice of America radio station. According to local sources, the Taliban had threatened to blow up Radio Pakistans installations if it continued to broadcast American propaganda.
VOA has launched its own Pashto-language station, Deeva Radio, targeted at the inhabitants of Pakistans Tribal Areas. Another Pashto-language station, Shamal (The Torch), has been started by Radio Free Europe, which is funded by the US congress.
A Taliban group in the Orakzai Tribal Area threatened to take reprisals against the Pakistani channel Samaa TV, last February after it reportedly broadcast footage of a militant chief inflicting corporal punishment on a young man who had not let his beard grow.
Meanwhile, in the southwestern province of Balochistan, Baloch Musallah Difah Tanzeem (Baloch Armed Defence Group), an armed group opposed to the provinces independence has been bombarding the press club in Khuzdar with threatening letters and phone calls. The group has threatened to kill journalists who continue to cover the activities of the provinces nationalist parties. Gunmen have also visited the press club several times. The group began drawing attention to itself at the start of 2010 by its threats against the press.
The press clubs president, Khan Muhammad, told Reporters Without Borders that solidarity demonstrations were held today in several of the provinces towns. The media in Balochistan are caught in the crossfire between the security services, supported by some jihadi groups, and the Baloch armed organisations.
Pakistan was ranked 159th out of 175 countries in the 2009 Reporters Without Borders press freedom index.
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