Category: Impunity

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PPF concerned over Murders of two Radio broadcasters

Pakistan Press Foundation (PPF) in a letter to the H.E. Danilo Medina Sánchez President of the Dominican Republic, expressed concern over the murders of radio broadcaster Luis Manuel Medina Pérez  and producer Leónidas Antonio Evangelista Martínez during live broadcast on February 15, 2017 in the southeastern city of San Pedro de Macorís.

PPF Secretary General Owais Aslam Ali, in his letter urged the government of Dominican Republic to investigate thoroughly the double murder of Pérez and Martínez and bring to justice those behind the murders of journalists.

According to Reporters Without Borders (RSF) the incident took place in the studio of Radio 103.5 FM, located inside a shopping mall, where “Milenio Caliente”, an interactive news program was on-air and live at Facebook as well.

As Pérez was concluding his show, an armed man walked into the studio and suddenly opened fire on him and his producer Martínez. Both died on the spot. The gunman also shot the radio station’s secretary Dayana García, who was fatally injured.

The Dominican Republic is ranked 62nd out of 180 countries in RSF’s 2016 world Press freedom index.

 

 

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Pakistani Editors use Whatsapp group to keep journalists safe

At least 71 media professionals were killed on the job last year, but their stories weren’t always reported. High-profile cases usually do get a lot of media attention, but the vast majority of killings involve local journalists. A group of Pakistani editors found a unique way to keep journalists safe by using media attention. Zaffar Abbas, Editor of Dawn newspaper, tells us more.

Afzal Mughal, a Pakistani journalist from a small newspaper in Quetta, the capital of the Balochistan province, was abducted, in the early morning of November, by a group of armed men who broke into his home while he was asleep. Normally, stories like this don’t make the front pages in Pakistan, which ranks as the sixth deadliest country for journalists according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.

But the new “Editors for Safety” initiative made all the difference. Instead of letting the case go by unnoticed, a message went out to a new Whatsapp group for Pakistani Editors, informing them of the kidnapping. In less than five minutes, 21 television channels were running the story. Its widespread dissemination even had international broadcasters, such as NBC, pick up the news.

Pakistani Editors use Whatsapp group to keep journalists safe“Within half an hour, he was back home, albeit badly battered,” Abbas, one of the key conveners of the group, told the World Editors Forum. “The government was rattled and the home security department stepped in to inquire.”

Formed in 2015 with the support of the Open Society Foundation, “Editors for Safety” has a single philosophy: An attack on one journalist is an attack on the whole industry.

Quick, easy communication to streamline media coverage
The Whatsapp group facilitates communication between editors, indicating how the details of an attack should be treated; whether to immediately publish or to hold details because negotiation is still ongoing. Almost all major newspapers and television stations in Pakistan are participating. And plans are made to include smaller newspapers, which are often the most vulnerable.

Despite initial reservations expressed by several editors about the initiative, six months in, Abbas began to see hope when rival television channels broadcasted kidnappings of journalists from competing stations. “They hated each other,” said Abbas. “But they were having breaking news about the other’s reporters’ kidnapping.”

“We have nothing to do with rivalry and politics,” said Abbas on the principle behind setting up the group. “Our point is about journalist safety.”

Media coverage is crucial to keeping journalists safe
The new initiative could be a sign of better times ahead, as addressing safety is a crucial step forward. But until the government and security forces tackle the issue of impunity, the threat of injustice will always be true. In Pakistan, 57 journalists have been reported killed since 1992. In 94% of cases, there has been complete impunity for the actors who committed these crimes.

Even though the attention on ending impunity often focuses on the Member States of the United Nations, editors are increasingly criticized for the lack of coverage of attacks on journalists.

“The main reason for the lack of coverage is often competition and the different interests of media owners,” said Abbas. “In the past, if news organizations were to report on attacks or the disappearance of journalists, they would often not include the name of the publication or the name of the journalist, which makes the issue faceless.”

World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers

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115 killings make Pakistan fourth deadliest country for journalists

BRUSSELS: Pakistan is fourth on the list of the deadliest countries in the world for journalists, and comes behind Mexico, Philippines and Iraq according to an International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) report released on Wednesday.

The report which chronicles journalist deaths since 1990, says that at least 2,297 journalists and media workers have been killed in the last 25 years, with Iraq ranking as the deadliest country with 309 killings followed by the Philippines (146), Mexico (120), Pakistan (115), Russian Federation (109), Algeria (106), India (95), Somalia (75), Syria (67) and Brazil (62).

Journalists lost their lives in targeted killings, bomb attacks, in the cross-fire and kidnappings in wars and armed conflicts across the globe while others were killed by organised crime barons and corrupt officials, the IFJ said.

Some 112 journalists and media professionals were killed last year alone, although the peak year was 155 killings in 2006, it said.

“At least 2,297 journalists and media staff have been killed since 1990, “the report said.

With just one out of 10 killings investigated, the IFJ said failure to end the impunity for killings and other attacks on media professionals only fuels the violence against them.

“This milestone publication charts the trajectory of safety crisis in journalism and bears witness to the IFJ’s long running campaign to end impunity for violence against media professionals,” IFJ President Jim Boumelha said in a statement.

“These annual reports were more than just about recording the killings of colleagues,” Boumelha said.

“They also represented our tribute for their courage and the ultimate sacrifice paid by journalists in their thousands who lost their lives fulfilling the role to inform and empower the public,” he added.

Since 1990, the Asia Pacific region registered the highest death toll at 571, followed by the Middle East with 473 killings, the Americas at 472, Africa at 424, and Europe with 357 dead.

The IFJ called on government officials, security and military officers and others who deal with them to respect their independence.

It urged “governments to comply with their international obligations by investigating journalists’ killings and bringing those responsible to justice, thus deterring future violence. “

Dawn

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PAKISTANI REPORTER SLAIN BY GUNMEN IN TRIBAL REGION

A Pakistani television journalist has been shot and killed by motorcycle gunmen in a tribal region in the country’s northwest that has been hit by a wave of attacks on members of the media.

Unidentified gunmen killed Hafeez Ur Rehman of Neo TV Nov. 22 near his home in the town of Kohat in the province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, formerly known as North-West Frontier Province, news outlets including Iran’s Press TV said.

The motive for the killing of Rehman, 42, remains unclear. No groups or individual have claimed responsibility yet. Rehman, who covered the region for Neo TV and previously edited his own newspaper, had not reported any threats made against him, Agence France-Presse reported. He is the second journalist to be killed in Pakistan this month and the third to be killed since September.

A local reporter, Zaman Mehsud, was shot five times in the same region Nov. 3. A Taliban commander later told Reuters his group was responsible for Mehsud’s death because of his “writing against us.” The commander also told the news agency the group had other journalists on its hit list in the region.

In September, a satellite technician for Pakistan’s Geo News and a former reporter for the network were killed in separate incidents in Karachi, and a third journalist was wounded in a shooting attack in Peshawar, the capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

At least 71 Pakistani media workers and journalists have been killed while practicing their profession in Pakistan since 2001 , according to a report Nov. 1 report released by the Pakistan Press Foundation. Of the 71 killed, the deaths of 47 journalists were directly related to their work, according to the report. Only two of the cases have resulted in criminal convictions.

Global Journalist

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Killing of journalist

THE murder in Kohat of Hafeezur Rehman, chief editor of a local weekly newspaper and the president of the cable TV network owners association, appears to be yet another chapter in the saga of violence against this country’s journalists.

While it may be too soon to authoritatively say that he was targeted as a result of his profession, this much is obvious: across the country, those whose duty it is to report on events regularly come under fire from extremists — and sometimes even by state-sponsored actors.

Further, the modus operandi of the attack on Hafeezur Rehman was the same as the one employed in the killing in Tank earlier this month of journalist Zaman Mehsud, responsibility for which was claimed by the banned TTP.

Also read: ‘More journalists killed in Pakistan than any other democracy’

Then, two weeks ago, Mohammed Afzal Mughal, vice president of the Balochistan Union of Journalists, was picked up by a law-enforcement agency; he was released the next afternoon, perhaps in part because his plight was immediately made public nationwide by the media.

And last week, the Faisalabad bureau office of Dunya TV was targeted with a hand grenade, leaving three people injured.

Not even a month has passed since the UN marked the International Day to End Impunity for Crimes Against Journalists on Nov 2.

The occasion was in Pakistan highlighted by most media houses that reiterated their call for the government and its justice system to forcefully pursue cases where media employees are harassed.

Yet the only two cases where the murders of journalists have seen pursuit and sentencing are those of Daniel Pearl and Wali Khan Babar, the former as a result of international pressure and the latter after much prodding locally.

The killing of Saleem Shahzad remains unresolved, to say nothing of cases where death has not been an outcome.

Until the state takes measures to end this culture of impunity, few media persons will be able to say that they can discharge their obligations the way they are supposed to.

Dawn

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Murder of Pakistani journalist highlights impunity again

Taliban claim responsibility for gunning down Zaman Mehsud

VIENNA, Nov 5, 2015 – The murder of yet another journalist in Pakistan this week because of his journalistic work once again raises the issue of journalists’ safety and the importance of ending the impunity both in that country and worldwide.

Senior journalist Zaman Mehsud of Tank District in Pakistan’s northwest Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province was gunned down on Tuesday, one day after the world marked the annual International Day to End Impunity for Crimes Against Journalists.

According to local media, Mehsud – who was working with the Daily Ummat and Nai Baat newspapers, and who served as president of the South Waziristan chapter of the Tribal Union of Journalists (TUJ) and as district coordinator of Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) in Tank District – was shot five times while riding his motorbike near the Dabara refugee camp in Tank.

Critically injured, the journalist was taken to a hospital in neighbouring Dera Ismail Khan District, but was later pronounced dead. Hours later, Reuters reported, Taliban commander Qari Saif Ullah Saif told the news agency: “We killed him because he was writing against us … we have some other journalists on our hit list in the region, soon we will target them.”

Journalists and media workers in Pakistan face a strong culture of impunity, as the Pakistan Press Foundation (PPF), headed by Pakistani journalist and IPI Executive Board Member Owais Aslam Ali, noted in a report released to mark Impunity Day. The group called on both Pakistan’s government and the media to do more to protect journalists and to apprehend their killers.

IPI Director of Advocacy and Communications Steven M. Ellis echoed that call, commenting: “Greater action must be taken to prevent an already dire situation from worsening. Far too many of our colleagues are dying and far too many of their murderers remain free to kill again.”

A statement that PPF posted on its website on Monday describing the report appears below in full, courtesy of the PPF. The complete report is available in English for download here or via the PPF’s website.

Those who murder, injure and assault journalists are almost never punished in Pakistan

A report on safety of Pakistani media professionals presents a bleak picture of level of insecurity faced by Pakistani journalists and calls [for] serious efforts by governments and media to change the present situation where those that kill, injure, abduct and threaten journalists are almost never punished.

The Report on Safety of Media Workers released by Pakistan Press Foundation (PPF) on the International Day on Impunity documents that since 2001, 47 media workers have been murdered, 164 injured, 88 assaulted, 21 abducted and 40 detained. In addition 24 media professionals died while covering dangerous assignments. There have been convictions in only two cases out of 384 cases of violence against media.

In Pakistan, journalists are killed, unjustly detained, abducted, beaten and threatened by law enforcement and intelligence agencies, militants, tribal and feudal lords, as well as by religious groups and political parties that claim to promote democracy and the rule of law. Adding to the gravity of the situation is the fact that the perpetrators of violence against journalists and media workers enjoy almost absolute impunity from prosecution in Pakistan.

Because of conflicts and insurgencies the number of murders and killings [are] the highest in Balochistan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and FATA. Since 2001, 21 journalists and media workers were killed in Balochistan, 19 in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, nine in FATA and 15 in Sindh, four in Punjab and three in Islamabad.

Threats and violence have forced many journalists to move from these danger zones and to leave the profession or to resort to self-censorship, particularly in conflict areas. As a consequence, news reports from conflict areas are based on press releases, not on observations by independent journalists. Thus, new reports that are published or broadcast lack credibility and do not inform the public in an objective manner.

The two convictions by courts were in Sindh for the murder of Daniel Pearl of the Wall Street Journal and Wali Babar of Geo Television. In both the cases the federal and provincial governments seriously [pursued] the cases because of pressure from the media organisations of the murdered journalists. The report thus recommends that criminal cases should not only be registered but should also be properly investigated and prosecuted against the perpetrators of violence against media. The report also calls on media itself to take the lead in ensuring safety of media practitioners and to ensure long-term follow up of cases of assault on media organisations and workers.

Apart from murders and killings, the largest number of cases of violence against media occurred in the province of Sindh. Out of a total of 164 journalists and media workers injured and assaulted since 2001, 91 were in Sindh. Surprisingly the second place in these categories with 70 assaults was Islamabad, which was largely due to the assault on large number of media practitioners by supporters of Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) during the Dharna in 2014. Forty-eight media practitioners were injured and assaulted in Punjab, 23 in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and 14 in Balochistan.

This reluctance to hold those who use violence against media professionals exists even in high profile cases such as that of murderous attack on Hamid Mir in 2014, and the murders of journalists Saleem Shahzad in 2011 and Hayatullah Khan in 2006. In all three cases high profile commissions were set up but the result has been nil.

Hamid Mir of Geo Television received six bullet wounds when he was attacked in Karachi in April 2014. The government set up a judicial commission in response to national and international furor over the attack. The commission was supposed to submit a report in 21 days. However, 18 months have passed and the commission has still not submitted the report. Meanwhile, Mir and other journalists continue to receive threats and face a sense of increasing insecurity. The report calls for the early completions of the commission report, which should fix responsibility and be made public.

Cases that are not high profile are covered up at the local level. One such example is that of the fatal shooting of Shan Dahar, reporter of “Abb Takk” TV channel on the night of Dec. 31, 2013 in Badh, in Larkana district. He was shot in his back and was taken to the hospital where he remained unattended until he succumbed to his injuries many hours later on Jan. 1, 2014. The local police, in an investigation that his family believes to be flawed and motivated, termed the death an accidental death as a result of shooting [into the air] on New Year’s Eve. However, the family believes he was targeted because of his stories on use of fake medicines in local hospitals. Despite repeated promises, including those by Minister of Information and Broadcasting Pervez Rashid, to have the case re-investigated, no action has been taken by the provincial or federal governments.

The report emphasizes that free media is essential to democracy in Pakistan and for promoting transparency and accountability, a prerequisite of sustained economic uplift, and that the impunity enjoyed by those who attack Pakistani media is seriously hampering independent journalism in Pakistan.

International Press Institute

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Safety should be a concern for all media stakeholders in Pakistan

Martyrs Day

By Iqbal Khattak

For the many gathered inside the ‘Sheesh Mahal’ Hall of Serena Hotel in Islamabad on 29 October in connection with the International Day to End Impunity (IDEI), it was a chilling account of what the family of slain young journalist Wali Khan Babar had gone through to fight impunity of crimes against journalists and media in Pakistan.

“Seven persons, including an eyewitness, police investigators and a lawyer were gunned down to stop the legal course of the case before justice was done,” Murtaza Khan Babar, the brother of the deceased Wali Khan Babar, told the audience that joined the United Nations Education, Scientific and Culture Organization (UNESCO) in launching Pakistan’s first Journalists’ Safety Indicators (JSIs). This is the first time a set of indicators have been publicised for any of the pilot countries belonging under the umbrella of the UN Plan of Action on the Safety of Journalists and the Issue of Impunity.

The brother of the deceased journalist used the occasion to remind media stakeholders that if they do not fight impunity together, then journalism will no longer be practiced professionally and peacefully in Pakistan. Pakistan is among the five pilot countries where the UN Plan of Action has been implemented since October 2013. Pakistan was chosen because of the 600 journalists that have been killed worldwide over the last 10 years, more than 10 percent of these took place in Pakistan. Only a few days after the commemoration of the International Day to End Impunity , a tribal journalist was shot dead in Tank district of northwestern Pakistan on 3 November 2015 reinforcing fears that safety concerns of journalists and media houses will not be addressed until a multi-stakeholders approach is implemented. Journalists, media houses, the government and civil society organisations (CSOs) must join hands to fight impunity.

The Journalists’ Safety Indicators authored by media specialist Adnan Rehmat, have identified roles for each stakeholder in working for the safety of journalists and fighting impunity – for media organisations, journalists, the government and the CSOs. If everyone fulfils their due roles and meets their responsibilities, this monster will not be difficult to tackle. Under the umbrella of the UN Action Plan of the Safety of Journalists and the Issue of Impunity, the purpose of the Journalists’ Safety Indicators (JSIs) is to pinpoint significant matters that show or impact on the safety of journalists. The JSIs can help assess the extent to which journalists are able to carry out their work under safe conditions. They can map and provide additional guidance on the roles and responsibilities of media stakeholders of the Pakistani media environment in relation to safety and fighting impunity – stakeholders such as media houses, media workers, political actors, civil society organisations, the UN and academia. The indicators are based on measurements such as safety and impunity statistics, the number and types of threats on the lives of journalists and media institutions, attacks, their frequency, media laws that protect journalists, and so on. The JSIs are a living document and will be developed continuously.

If all journalists are trained and equipped with tools to stay safe while reporting from dangerous areas in Pakistan; and media organisations take the appropriate steps to ensure the safety of their journalists: and the government helps to provide an enabling environment for journalists to do their work and bring perpetrators of crimes against journalists to justice – we may minimize the risks that journalists face.

Pakistani journalists should learn to say ‘no’ if their newsrooms, particularly TV news channels, or owners push them too far in order to be first with the breaking news and get the ‘nice shots’. The ”breaking news syndrome” and lack of concern for journalists’ safety is compromising the safety and lives of reporters and cameramen. A columnist in Quetta city of Balochistan was killed for using a headline for his article suggested by his newsroom.

Two actors – the state and non-state actors, besides legal and illegal entities across the country, are believed to be targeting the media. The state actors are mainly referred to as the military and civilian-run intelligence agencies and police. If they support the media instead, other sources of attacks, threats, assassinations and harassments by the non-state actors mainly referred to as Taliban and other legal and illegal entities may well be countered. If the media owners prioritise staff safety and security, Pakistan can be a role model for other countries to overcome the issue of journalists’ safety concerns.

I have little doubt in the ability of the state of Pakistan to make it happen. The only thing I see missing is the will to make an enabling environment where journalists can work independently and professionally.

International Media Support