Although Pakistan’s minister of information, Mushahid Hussain Sayed,
assured CPJ in a meeting in New York on September 25 that the Pakistani
government supports press freedom, Prime Minister Mohammad Nawaz Sharif—elected
in February after waging a campaign that led to the ouster of Benazir Bhutto
in November 1996 on charges of corruption and human rights abuses—leads
a
government that hovers on the fringes of repression. Backed by Gen.
Jehangir Karamat, Prime Minister Sharif, emerged from a three-month power
struggle involving the president and the chief justice, who had moved to
oust the prime minister on charges of contempt of court. On December 2,
President Farooq Ahmed Leghari resigned and Chief Justice Sajjad Ali Shah
was removed by other supreme court justices. Amidst the country’s golden
jubilee celebrations, on August 14, Sharif enacted the Anti-Terrorism Act
(ATA), a harsh martial law-style response to factional violence in the
Punjab region between rival Sunni and Shi’a political groups. The new law
allows military authorities to arrest "suspected terrorists" without warrant
and even, in loosely defined circumstances, to shoot on sight those "committing
a terrorist act" or "likely to commit a terrorist act."
In an incident that illustrates the lengths to which Pakistani military authorities can go in prosecuting security "crimes," a military court sentenced Humayun Fur, bureau chief of the Peshawar-based Urdu-language daily Mashriq, to five years in prison for relaying state secrets to a foreign diplomatic mission in Islamabad. Fur had been kidnapped by military authorities on June 28, and then held incommunicado for several weeks before he was tried.
Press freedom conditions deteriorated dramatically in Sindh Province, where continued clashes between the provincial government and the United National Movement (Muttahida Quami Movement or MQM), the armed opposition party of Urdu-speaking Indian immigrants, left at least 400 dead in the city of Karachi.
The Sindh National Front party (SNF), headed by Mumtaz Bhutto, former prime minister Bhutto’s uncle, repeatedly subjected Sindhi newspapers to attack, harassment, and other forms of intimidation. In one case, SNF party members brutally beat Shakeel Naich, a reporter for the Sindhi-language daily Awami Awaz, after he published an article critical of Mumtaz Bhutto. In mid-September, a number of reporters were injured when police broke up a march of more than 300 journalists and media workers who were protesting the escalating attacks on press freedom in Sindh Province.
Journalists also report that in rural areas, where the political structure remains semi-feudal, powerful landlords subject journalists who publish investigative reports that could expose corruption in local governments to intimidation and harassment.
Despite ongoing political, ethnic, and sectarian conflicts, the Pakistani
press remains vital. Condemning the escalating attacks on the press, local
journalist associations and newspaper unions have demonstrated a firm commitment
to protecting the rights of their colleagues and to securing press freedom
in the country.