Media stifled in Pakistan; attacks on journalists rising
Archana Roy (archana) Email Article Print Article
Published 2007-11-06 08:32 (KST)
This article was only lightly edited.
Freedom of the press in South Asia is again under attack. While the media has been muzzled in Pakistan after the imposition of a state of emergency, cops beat up media representatives in Nepal on Sunday and a politician in the Indian state of Bihar has been accused of assaulting three journalists.
In Pakistan soon after martial law went into force, Pakistani police raided the offices of a private television channel. They tried to confiscate the equipment and even wanted to impound the van broadcasting the situation live on TV.
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The Nepal incident has also brought to the fore how vulnerable journalists are to police atrocities. Hundreds of journalists were protesting against Nepal government's failure to rescue a radio journalist who was abducted by Maoists and is still missing. Several of the protesting journalists were arrested and many injured in the police action on Sunday.
Recent spurt in violent incidents against the media have once again necessitated the need for a review of the situation. Journalists reporting in sensitive areas need to be protected by law enforcers, who on the contrary are indulging in atrocities against the journalists.
The accused in the incident in India's Bihar is Anant Singh a member of the legislative assembly of the ruling party in the state. Singh has been held on charges of assaulting journalists who had approached him for his comments on a rape and murder case against him. The incident has invited protests in the state and also again raked up the issues of journalist safety and the attack on freedom of the press in a democratic country like India.
Singh and his henchmen assaulted a TV channel correspondent and his cameraman. Singh is already facing grave charges of murdering a girl and sexually exploiting her.
A probe by the Central Bureau of Investigation has been ordered into the rape incident. The incident with the journalists, who were first held hostage and then beaten up mercilessly, has invited the ire of not just the media but political parties as well.
The journalists were attacked last month at Nandigram near Kolkata in the state of West Bengal, which has been witnessing violence the past few months over land acquisition fears. The government scrapped the proposed Special Economic Zone (SEZ) project but the violence continues for political reasons as the village goes for election next year.
There have been instances of attacks on journalists recently in other countries as well. One case is that of an attack on Vesna Bojicic, a correspondent with the Voice of America Serbian service. She was attacked over allegations that she biased in favor of Albanians. This was not the first attack on her as she had been attacked in 2004 for her work.
Hundreds of journalists have been attacked in Nepal over the last 11 months. The situation is so grave that there have been death threats as well.
In India, there have been incidents in which journalists were killed. A religious sect, the head of which is facing rape and murder charges, was allegedly involved in the killing of journalist Ram Chander Chhatrapati in 2001 in the state of Haryana after had exposed the illegal deeds of the sect's head.
It was some months back that two ABC News employees were killed in Iraq. There have been more that 100 deaths of journalists in the troubled country in the last four years.
The editor of a Philippine newspaper was also killed this year. He happened to be 49th journalist to be killed in the country. The country happens to be the second most dangerous for journalists after Iraq.
In April, the editor of a magazine was shot dead in Sri Lanka. Another journalist, a Tamil, lost his life in the same month while he was cycling to his office in Jaffna. In the last six years, most of the journalists killed in Sri Lanka have been Tamil.
A British journalist was beaten up by Afghan refugees in Pakistan in 2001. The victim, Robert Fisk, 55, writes for The Independent.
In August Pakistani TV journalist Babar Malik was allegedly picked up by intelligence personnel in Islamabad. He had been reporting on a missing persons case when this incident took place.
Again in Pakistan unidentified people attacked the house of a journalist using grenades in Peshawar in May. In November last year Mohammad Ismail, a senior journalist and bureau chief of Pakistan Press International (PPI), was murdered by unknown assailants in Islamabad.
There have also been attacks on journalists in countries like Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Burma and China. In some cases, the journalists were reporting on abductions, torture and even killings. The Media has been repeatedly gagged by governments in different countries in cases where government functioning has been exposed. In terror-stricken areas across the world, governments have not done much to safeguard the media.
Freedom of press needs to be protected in South Asia. Shutting down television channels and picking up or attacking journalists will only mean more antigovernment uprisings by the media.
Crackdowns by governments on journalists need to be checked. It has to be vehemently countered by not just raising the issue on different platforms but by writing about it and forcing countries across the globe to act, rather than just being mute spectators to the threats faced by the media.
©2007 OhmyNews
Other articles by reporter Archana Roy
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