Asia Times: Pakistan media under pressure to back Sharif



	January 08, 1999	atimes.com

Media/Technology

Pakistan media under pressure to back Sharif
By Beena Sarwar

LAHORE - Having tamed Pakistan's judiciary, military andpresident, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has taken on media critics.

Government authorities are tightening screws of control onanti-government journalists, with raids on offices of thecountry's largest groups of newspapers last week.

Four officials from the Federal Investigating Agency (FIA)spent three hours in the Rawalpindi-Islamabad offices of the masscirculation Urdu-language daily 'Jang' and its English-languagesister publication, 'The News'.

The alleged reason was ''to check newsprint quotas and storerecords'' as stated by the additional director-general of the FIAwho supervised the inspection, but the Jang group said it wasjust harassment.

The FIA officials also attempted to take away some of therecords but were prevented by members of the newspaper union. Theteam left saying they were only following instructions from ''thetop''.

Although the government spokesman denied there was a raid onMonday, even saying that ''no official from any government agencyvisited the newspaper'', the chief of the 'Ehtesab(accountability) Bureau Saifur Rehman accepted responsibility forthe raid in an interview on BBC.

Not ruling out future action, Rehman said the authoritieswould continue probing ''as needed''.

Six months ago, according to the senator, the Income TaxDepartment detected that the Group had concealed income amountingto 2 billion rupees (roughly 43 million dollars). The FIA, hesaid, had been asked to investigate the matter, which it did bychecking the Book of Accounts and Store Ledger.

When asked whether the raids were connected with attempts topersuade the Jang group not to carry a report from the London'Observer' charging the prime minister's family with defaulting ona loan, Rehman said the allegations levelled in the report wouldnot harm Sharif.

However, the Jang group said the FIA raid was ''part of thevindictive policy'' that the government has been following for''the last six months against Jang Group and other newspapers''.Najam Sethi, outspoken editor of 'Friday Times', another English-language newspaper, has also complained of harassment by theIncome Tax department.

Mir Shakilur Rehman, publisher and editor-in-chief of the JangGroup says he has been told by two senior officials close toPrime Minister Sharif to dismiss 16 journalists on his rolls.

When the harassment started in July-August, the ''dismissallist'' carried the names of four journalists, including MaleehaLodhi, editor of the Rawalpindi-Islamabad edition of 'The News'who was Pakistan's ambassador to the United States in the previousBenazir Bhutto government.

That list has been expanded to include three other womenjournalists and 12 men including Kamran Khan, editor, NewsInvestigation Unit, Karachi; Mehmood Sham, editor Jang, Karachi;Irshad Ahmed Haqqani, editor Jang, Lahore; Shoaib Marghoob,editor Jang Magazine, Lahore; and Marianna Babar, specialcorrespondent in Rawalpindi.

In addition, Rehman has been told to keep the policies of hispublications ''supportive'' of controversial issues: 'Shariat'(so-called Islamic law), Karachi where the government hasintroduced military courts, the judiciary, the Mian Brothers -(the prime minister's family business, which was previouslycalled the Ittefaq group.)

''We've been told that nothing adverse should be writtenconcerning their (the Sharifs) loans, business, personal mattersetc.,'' said Rehman. ''They have told us that future issues willbe communicated to us as and when they turn up."

He confirmed that the Jang group was told not to print thestory about the non-payment of a 11 million pound loan taken bythe prime minister's family, published by the London-based'Observer' the day before the raid. The story has been reproducedby several other newspapers here.

Other publications have also been sustaining similarpressures. In October, plainclothes officials landed up at theoffice of the authoritative Karachi-based monthly 'Newsline'demanding the home phone numbers and addresses of itscorrespondents.

''The pressure is off for now,'' says editor Rehana Hakim,''At least until the next story."

The husband-wife couple who run the weekly 'The Friday Times',Najam Sethi and Jugnu Mohsin, have for long been complainingabout their phone being tapped and other harassment.

''All our telephones are tapped, including the mobile (cell)phones. When we go to Islamabad, senior government officialsjokingly quote bits of our conversations to us,'' Mohsin said.

The government's heavy-handed tactics to control Pakistan'sindependent press has unleashed widespread criticism, nationallyas well as internationally, including faxes to the prime ministerfrom Reporters Sans Frontiers and the Committee to ProtectJournalists.

On Tuesday, the combined Opposition reacted strongly to thegovernment action, and walked out of the Senate in sympathy withjournalists who had left the press gallery in protest.

(Inter Press Service)