Daily Times

The Friday attack on Ahmed Noorani, an investigative reporter with The News, was a grim reminder of the dangerous conditions under which journalists work in Pakistan. Working conditions, factual reporting and expressing critical opinions have always been dangerous undertakings in Pakistan. But over the recent years, coercion has become rampant and intensified. Many argue that it is worse than the situation under military rule. We have a democracy and yet media is under threat and media workers are being harassed.

This profession is unique in the sense that you are never going to make people happy if you are professional and good at your work. The better you are at unveiling hidden facts, the more enemies you’d make. There are always going to be some people or groups or institutions that would like inconvenient facts to remain under the shadow, away from public eye.

Take the example of Arshed Sharif, the prime time current affairs program host at ARY News. After he produced the copy of a communication between two officials of Directorate of Intelligence Bureau (IB) about the on-going investigation regarding some parliamentarians for their alleged links with terrorist groups, Arshed came under fire by the officials, members of the government and supporters of the ruling party. The Prime Minister as well as the IB, however, later denied the existence of that letter. Arshed stands by his story, so does the government.

In the case of Ahmed Noorani, one of his recent reports that stirred a major controversy, concerned a secret WhatsApp call that a senior official in the Supreme Court made in order to influence the composition of the Joint Investigation Team to be formed under the Supreme Court orders to probe the graft allegations against the former prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. The story was never denied, was in fact owned by the Supreme Court officials. Another story filed by Noorani was about ISI being in control of the administrative arrangements of JIT. That too was not denied except an explanation that the control was given to ISI on the initiative of the JIT not the ISI.

These attacks will only stop if all state institutions work together to ensure thorough investigations so the culprits can be nabbed and punished. If that can’t happen, journalism will continue to be Pakistan’s most dangerous profession

The third story by Noorani that created even a bigger controversy was about the findings of JIT, which he reported just before the JIT report was made public. The report ‘leaked’ contents of JIT report and stated that Nawaz Sharif had been cleared of the graft charges. This story was busted the very day it appeared in The News, after which Ahmed’s apology was printed on the front page with the same prominence as of the original story.

But Ahmed Noorani was made a target of public ridicule and anger especially by Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf(PTI) members and supporters. The spokesperson of that party went on rampage against Noorani repeatedly. The official twitter account of PTI tweeted a very offensive video that labelled Ahmed as a sell-out and alluded that he was a traitor. So much so that his management was reportedly pressurised to fire Noorani and a few of his other colleagues from Geo and The News; and ‘discipline them’ on social media. Thereafter, Noorani had to deactivate his twitter account and was reportedly asked to take a break from filing stories for The News.

In both the cases, the journalists might have shown their biases, or made mistakes but little do our state institutions realise that making mistakes while reporting and having biases for whatever you consider right is an essential part of freedom of expression.

What is more worrying in the case of Ahmed Noorani is the anonymity of his attackers. Similar anonymity was seen in the case of abducted bloggers who were released around a month after their abduction. They had to leave the country after an organised campaign accusing them of blasphemy. Now that’s hugely problematic because when you accuse someone of blasphemy, you are actually signing their death warrant. Any zealot can suddenly kill an accused without even trying to know if the allegation was proven.

Weeks before Ahmed Noorani, another TV journalist at Waqt news, Matiullah Jan was harassed and attacked while he was driving with his kids. His car’s windscreen was broken with bricks leaving his kids terrified in the rear seat. In June, Aizaz Syed of Geo News was chased and manhandled by ‘unknown assailants’.

In all these cases, journalists and bloggers had offended one or the other powerful institution of the country by bringing up hitherto hidden details or expressing their opinions. The abducted bloggers were strongly against the policies of some extremely powerful institutions. Ahmed Noorani had been tweeting fiercely for the civilian supremacy, strengthening of democracy and across the board accountability.

Much before all these recent cases, senior journalist Hamid Mir got severely injured in an assassination attempt. A commission of inquiry was set up but its report is still under thick clouds. Raza Rumi narrowly escaped death in March 2014 but his driver was killed in the attack. Then there was Saleem Shehzad, another journalist who got missing few years ago and was later found dead in a ditch. The inquiry report for his murder was unable to identify the culprits. Investigations on the attacks on Aizaz and Matiullah are still in limbo. Journalists, social media users and human rights defenders in FATA, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Balochistan, and now in Sindh are routinely kidnapped and attacked. They don’t even get a mention in the 24-hours ‘Breaking news’ cycle. Nothing is ever heard about the investigation of these cases.

The strange fact is that in such investigations, neither the victims are interviewed when they come back from captivity, nor is modern technological tools are properly used. Geo-fencing for example, could easily identify who was using a mobile telephone at the time and area of attack. Even the Supreme Court couldn’t get the geo-fencing report in Hamid Mir case. “Geo-fencing is very effective tool, which unfortunately doesn’t appear to be under he control of government”, says Matiullah Jan. Who, then, exercises control over this technology? Who obstructs these investigations? If the sate cannot answer this, it should be ready to be labelled as failed state.

The only way to stop these attacks is that all the state institutions must work together to ensure a thorough investigation so that the culprits be nabbed and punished. If that can’t happen, journalism will continue to be Pakistan’s most dangerous profession.

The writer is a staff member who tweets at @marvisirmed and can be contacted at marvisirmed@gmail.com

Published in Daily Times, October 29^th 2017.