From: "Frederick Noronha (FN)"
Subject: PAKISTAN - Four journalists arrested, one radio station closed (fwd)
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Press Release
15 November 2004
PAKISTAN
Four journalists arrested, one radio station closed
Reporters Without Borders (Reporters sans
frontières) is concerned at a wave of arrests of
journalists and closure of one of Pakistan's few
privately-run radio stations.
The worldwide press freedom organisation has
written to the prime minister Shaukat Aziz urging
the release of the journalists who are still
behind held and for FM Radio 103 to be reopened.
Police arrested Farhat Abbas Shah and Afaq Shah,
journalists on FM Radio 103 on 10 November at
their radio's studios in Lahore, Punjab province
in the east of the country. They were released on
bail the next day.
Two days later, around 20 police raided the
station and seized equipment, making it
impossible for it to continue broadcasting. They
also arrested two staff members, reportedly Abdul
Ghafoor and Nauman. The radio chiefly broadcasts
programmes from the BBC World Service
Urdu-language service.
According to the Pakistan Press Club, the two
radio journalists were arrested for broadcasting
a report on a scandal at the Punjab cardiology
institute. They were reportedly maltreated in the
first hours of their detention.
Police accused them both of taking part in a
demonstration in front of a public building but
the station director said that Farhat Abbas Shah
had not been involved in the demonstration.
On 6 November, Qazi Muhammad Rauf, correspondent
for the Urdu-language daily Express in the
north-eastern Khyber Agency tribal zone, was
seized by armed men and held for 24 hours by
members of Sheikhmalkel tribe angry at what they
saw as a biased article.
Rauf had reported on clashes between the tribe
and a fundamentalist religious organisation Amr
Bill Maroof Wa Nahee Anil Munkar in the tribal
area. Around a dozen armed men abducted Rauf took
him to a private detention centre where they beat
and then chained him.
The authorities intervened following a tip off
from his colleagues in the Tribal Union of
Journalists and persuaded the tribal leaders to
release him, on 7 November.
Police in Skardo in the north-east arrested
editor of a banned magazine Kargil International,
Ghulam Shehzad Agha, on 4 November. The
authorities reportedly accuse the journalist and
political activist of backing autonomy for the
Pakistani part of Jammu and Kashmir. The
Pakistani interior ministry banned the magazine
that he ran on 8 September 2004, charging that it
carried seditious and unpatriotic news.
Elsewhere, Sarwar Mujahid, correspondent for the
conservative Urdu-language daily Nawa-I-Waqt in
Okara district in the east of the country was
freed on 12 October 2004. He was arrested and
detained on 31 July 2004 at Sahiwal prison in
Punjab province.
Mujahid was held under the Maintenance of Public
Order law. His detention appeared to be linked to
his articles about a conflict between Pakistani
paramilitaries and tenant farmers who have for
years farmed land belonging to the army.
--
Vincent Brossel
Asia - Pacific Desk
Reporters Sans Frontières
5 rue Geoffroy Marie
75009 Paris
33 1 44 83 84 70
33 1 45 23 11 51 (fax)
asia@rsf.org
www.rsf.org
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