Category: Media safety

KARACHI: After almost 20 hours of forced detention, captors released on Monday the journalist who had been whisked away on Saturday night.

Abdullah Zafar, a staff reporter at The Nation, was taken away during an overnight raid at his house in Lawyers Society, Scheme 33 in the Sacchal area of Karachi. He was then shifted to an undisclosed location and his whereabouts were unknown until his release.

Security personnel in plainclothes dropped him near Jinnah International Airport in the early hours of Monday. “I do not know who they were, why they picked me up or where they kept me detained,” said Zafar after his release.

“Initially they beat me badly and later tried to torture me psychologically,” Zafar narrated his ordeal. “They kept asking my life history and checked my social media accounts.” He added that he had no idea where he was kept but it seemed that it was an underground place.

Zafar further revealed that before freeing him, the captors told him that they had detained him mistakenly. “They took me blindfolded in a vehicle and dropped me near the airport,” he narrated. “Then I reached the home via rickshaw.”

The Karachi Union of Journalists and other journalists’ bodies had condemned the Zafar’s abduction and demanded the authorities take action for his recovery.

The Express Tribune

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KARACHI : The whereabouts of a journalist associated with a national daily are unknown after he was allegedly picked up by “plainclothes security personnel” in the early hours of Sunday.

According to his family, Abdullah Zafar, a staff reporter at The Nation, was taken away in an overnight raid at their house in Lawyers Society, Scheme 33 of Karachi’s Sacchal area.

“Over a dozen personnel in plainclothes – most of them clad in shalwar kameez with faces covered – arrived at my home at late night,” said Zafarullah, the father of the detained journalist.
He said the security personnel had arrived in three vehicles accompanied by two police vans and they had his younger brother with them too. He added that police and Rangers personnel were also accompanying the plainclothes personnel.

“They first raided our old house in Shah Faisal Colony from where we have recently shifted and took my brother along with them, and then raided my house,” said Zafarullah. “After entering our home, they went to my son’s room and after a two-minute talk with him, they took him away.”

He added that as the men were leaving they also tried to take him and his other son with them too but later left them behind at the main door.

“They just told me that my son was involved in the forgery of a Rs50 million cheque,” Zafarullah said, “A Rs50 million cheque bounce case? That’s a joke to us.”

The missing journalist’s family also accused police of not cooperating with them.

“I visited Sacchal police station multiple times but they did not register my complaint,” said Zafarullah. “The police just took my application on my third visit and even then they did not give me a receiving copy of the application.”

However, when contacted, the law-enforcement agencies including police and Rangers denied their involvement in Abdullah’s disappearance.

“I have checked and he is not with the police,” Sindh IGP Allah Dino Khowaja told The Express Tribune.

Similarly, a senior Rangers official said the paramilitary force did not have a role in Abdullah’s detention.

“We have checked. Our troops did not detain or arrest him,” he claimed.

Meanwhile, journalists’ bodies have demanded the reporter’s safe return to his family.

“We condemn Abdullah’s illegal detention and we demand his immediate release,” said Fahim Siddiqui, the general secretary of the Karachi Union of Journalists. “This is not the way to deal with a journalist. Law enforcers should have approached the journalists’ union first if he (Abdullah) was involved in any wrongdoing.”

Siddiqui urged the prime minister and the Sindh chief minister to take notice of the matter and ensure Abdullah’s safe recovery.

The home minister, taking notice of the case, has ordered an inquiry into the matter.

The Express Tribune

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Pakistan Press Foundation (PPF) in a letter to Enrique Peña Nieto, President of Mexico is alarmed at the brutal murder of journalist Salvador Adame; whose burnt body was found on June 14, 2017 at the roadside in the western state of Michoacán.

PPF Secretary General Owais Aslam Ali in a letter urged the Mexican government to thoroughly investigate the murder of Adame and bring all those responsible to justice, also assure to recover the abducted journalists.

According to Reporters Without Borders (RSF), Adame was the director of Canal 6 Media TV, a local TV channel, and at the same time one of its presenters. He had had been missing since 18 May, when gunmen kidnapped him in the municipality of Nueva Italia.

Police arrested two men on 21 June – Ignacio “El Cenizo” Rentería Andrade and Daniel “El Cabezas” Rubio Ruiz – on suspicion of carrying out Adame’s abduction and murder.

Still four journalists are missing in Michoacán state named José Antonio García Apac, Mauricio Estrada Zamora, Ramón Ángeles Zalpa and María Esther Aguilar Cansimbe.

THE arrest of a journalist in Quetta on Sunday illustrates the extent to which the legislation on electronic crimes can be used to stifle dissent.

Zafarullah Achakzai, a reporter for a Quetta-based daily, was taken into custody by security personnel in plainclothes, a questionable modus operandi in itself, and charges were filed against him by the FIA under the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act, 2016.

Mr Achakzai’s ‘crime’, according to his family, was to have posted comments against “national security institutions” on social media.

His remarks were critical of the police for having arrested MPA Majeed Achakzai after a traffic policeman in Quetta was run over by a four-wheeler apparently driven by the legislator.

In the process, the reporter also questioned the competence and integrity of the security agencies, in particular the Frontier Corps which is at the forefront of law-enforcement in Balochistan.

One may disagree, even vehemently, with Mr Achakzai’s opinions. For him to be arrested for expressing them, however, is taking things too far.

Rights campaigners fought an extended and ultimately futile battle against the more draconian provisions in the electronic crimes bill before it was passed last year.

Civil society’s misgivings, particularly over those sections of the law that were vaguely worded and could thus be liberally interpreted to intimidate citizens, were clearly justified.

Many branches of the state apparatus do not always function according to acceptable standards.

Are the people of this country, ostensibly a democracy, not entitled to the democratic freedom to speak their minds?

Speech that incites violence or hatred is one thing, but to clamp down on criticism, valid or otherwise, of institutional shortcomings is quite different.

Moreover, even though he was acting in a personal capacity on this occasion, Mr Achakzai’s arrest also raises concerns about the media’s watchdog role.

After all, it is often reporting by journalists that results in uncomfortable questions being asked of the authorities, an inconvenience that an increasingly authoritarian state would surely be pleased to do away with.

Dawn