In Pakistan Being A Journalist Can Be Deadly

In the most dangerous place on Earth to be a journalist, the media's problems are reflections of the state's incapacity.

In 2011, Pakistan was, for the second year running, the most dangerous place in the world to be a journalist. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), seven journalists were killed in the country as a direct result of their profession - most of those were killed in targeted attacks (rather than indiscriminate bomb blasts) for having reported on particular topics.

A further four were also killed, though the US-based media rights watchdog was not able to establish a confirmed link between the victim’s reporting and their deaths, bringing the total death toll up to 11 (a number similar to that cited by the media rights group Reporters Without Borders).

To put those numbers in perspective, consider this: in each of Iraq and Libya (both active war zones during the past year), five journalists were killed in 2011, while in Afghanistan (another active war zone) and largely lawless Somalia, the death toll was two in each.

"There was a time when the red line used to be anything to do with the army," says Mohammad Malick, the Islamabad editor for The News, one of the country’s largest English daily newspapers. "Even if you [talked] about national security, it was taken to be akin to questioning the army's patriotism. [But] I think now instead of removing the red lines, everybody has added their own. If you write about the MQM's [a Sindh-based political party] alleged criminal activities, you're accused of being ethnically motivated. If you write about any other [similar] topic, again you are either accused of being parochial, you're accused of fanning provincialism. So everybody is hiding behind some ethnic blanket, some cultural barrier."

In May of 2011 Saleem Shahzad the South Asia bureau chief for the Asia Times on Line was killed  after publishing articles linking the Pakistani navy with Al Qaeda.

Shahzad was reported missing after he failed to show up for a televised panel discussion in Islamabad. He was scheduled to discuss his recent article for Asia Times Onlinein which he reported that Al-Qaeda, having infiltrated the Pakistani navy, was behind a 17-hour siege at a naval base in Karachi on May 22. He said the attack came after the military or security officials refused to release a group of naval officials suspected of being linked to militant groups. The attack, coming soon after the U.S. killing of Osama bin Laden on May 2, was deeply embarrassing to the Pakistani military. Earlier in May, three navy buses carrying recruits had been blown up via remote control devices in Karachi, the large port city where the navy is headquartered.
Shahzad's death also came a few days after the release of his book, Inside the Taliban and Al-Qaeda.