State
of the Press freedom in Balochistan in 2008
By Malik Siraj Akbar
Balochistan Bureau Chief,
Daily Times/ Daily Aaj Kal
Four months after his release
from a nine-month long official detention, twenty-one-year
old journalist Javid Lehri travels on every fortnight
from his native Khuzdar district to Karachi for
his medical treatment. Lehri had been whisked away
by masked officials of a shadowy force from room
No. 2 of Bugti block at a college hostel, where
he was staying, at around 21:00pm on November 29
th , 2007 and released on August 22, 2008. The
government was apparently displeased with his reports
and wanted Lehri to soften the reports in favor
of the government. Since his release, the journalist
working with the Quetta-based Urdu newspaper, Daily
Azadi, complains about insomnia, post-traumatic
stress disorder (PTSD), deep depression and eating
disorders.
"I have no money to bear the expenses of my medical
treatment. But I have to regularly go to Karachi for
treatment. I am still not the old Javid that I
used to be. I regularly have nightmares. I keep
receiving threatening phone calls that I should
not disclose to the media what had actually happened
to me inside the torture cell," he told this writer
after much persuasion for his first ever interview
to the media.
Around twelve truckload of officials, eye witnesses
say, had raided the boys' hostel in Khuzdar district
to arrest Javid Lehri. As he was overpowered by
the officials and forcefully a mask was put on
his face, Javid was immediately taken to Quetta the
same night.
"Previously, whenever I used to receive threatening
phone calls, I used ignore them by believing that
my friends were just fooling me with their phone
calls. But this time, it was no longer a joke.
I was indeed in the custody of uncivilized officials
who abused and beat me. It took me three months
to know that the place that I had been moved to
was Quetta . I was kept in a fully dark 5X3
room. Later on, I came to know that I was at the
Quli Camp inside Quetta cantonment
area," he informed.
Lehri recollected that in the first three days
and nights of detention, he had been hung upside
down and beaten up ruthlessly. "I became unconscious
time and again. After three days, I was enchained
and further tortured. The torture was so unbearable
that I prayed for death. I wish I could find anything
inside the torture cell that I could use to commit
suicide. I begged to Allah to give me death because
I was too young to bear the indescribable torture," stated
a tearful Javid.
Inside the jail, Javid was asked why the newspaper
he worked for was called Azadi [liberation].
His captors wanted him to clarify whose liberation
the paper actually was struggling for. He was asked
to get the newspapers' name changed. "I helplessly
replied that I was merely working with the newspaper
as a correspondent. I could not change the name
or the editorial policy of the paper. But they
didn't trust me and kept on beating me."
While Lehri was undergoing callous suffering inside
the torture cell despite the restoration of democracy
in Pakistan, his family members were constantly
threatened by his official captors that the former
should keep quite or get prepared to receive Lehri's
dead body.
"Journalism has been my passion since childhood.
Now, I am back to my job but I regret that no one,
including my own media house and the media watch-dogs,
came to my help during the hard time. All that
I urgently need today is protection and assistance
for my medical treatment at this point in my life."
2008 was not a media-friendly year in the conflict-ravaged
Balochistan province by all standards. As the conflict
between the State and the Baloch separatists continued
unabated this year, journalists reporting in or
from Balochistan had to pay a very high price for
their job. While reporters like Javid Lehri had
to undergo extrajudicial arrest and severe torture,
the others had to face a more unfortunate fate.
For instance, Dr. Chishti Mujahid, 55, the Quetta bureau
chief of the weekly, Akhbar-e-Jahan, was murdered
on February 9, 2008 by the Baloch Liberation
Army (BLA). His murder came in the wake of a controversial
headline the weekly had printed along with the
slain journalist's write-up on the killing of Baloch
fighter, Nawabzada Balaach Marri. The headline
ridiculed Marri and irked his supporters until
they avenged the 'partial journalist' by killing
him on broad-day light in the provincial capital.
Mujahid's younger brother, Tariq Chishti, told
this scribe that his family was "very disappointed" with
the organization that his brother was working for
because the owner and the editor of the magazine
even did not make a phone call to condole with
the family over the murder of Mujahid.
The government also did not hesitate from applying
old tactics of muzzling the freedom of expression
by banning some books. On 20 March, 2008
, the government banned two books written by popular
Baloch scholar Dr. Naseer Dashti – " The Voice
of Balochistan ' and " In a Baloch Perspective " – saying
that both the books posed a threat to the integrity
of the country. The banned author reacted to the
official ban by saying: "If a book is to disintegrate
a country then there is nothing that can integrate
a country."
As many as four journalists were injured in Turbat
district on August 25 when the Frontier Corps (FC)
personnel opened fire on a political rally which
was marking the second death anniversary of Nawab
Mohammad Akbar Khan Bugti. On October 21, two other
journalists from Daily Awam were injured when their
office in Quetta 's Universal Complex was
attacked in a severe explosion. On November 16
th , an underground organization, the Baloch Liberation
Front (BLF) issued threatening letters to the newspapers
and journalists to prepare to face 'deadly consequences'
in case they did not give 'deserving coverage'
to their activities.
Yet, the only positive thing for Baloch journalists
seen during this year, says Shahzada Zulfiqar,
the president of Quetta Press Club, is the decline
in the intelligence agencies' unnecessary influence
on the journalists. "Since the ouster of former
president Pervez Musharraf, the kind of harassment
newsmen had to face by the agencies has now largely
diminished," says Zulfiqar.
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