The ISI, Taliban and the media

Fifteen media persons, other than Hamid Mir, suffered different forms of violence during this year but none of those incidents could generate as much uproar in the country as did the attack on Mr Mir

Leaving aside as to who conspired for an attack on Hamid Mir, let us review the role played by the media and the government in leading the country to the point where we are today. Hamid Mir is not the first media person to suffer an assassination attempt on his life during this year; there were at least 13 media persons who went through the same experience and seven of them were not as lucky as Mr Mir. They are now part of history. Four of them belonged to a private television channel. Three out of the six wounded media persons belonged to a media group in the troubled tribal area of South Waziristan and the remaining were from other media houses. Besides these attacks, one media person (Imtiaz Alam) received death threats and the other (Jamshed Baghwan) was lucky to have a bomb defused before it could have exploded outside his house. Both of them were from the same news channel.

Fifteen media persons, other than Hamid Mir, suffered different forms of violence during this year but none of those incidents could generate as much uproar in the country as did the attack on Mr Mir. What caused this upheaval for one media person? Either the other media persons were not as popular and as influential as Mr Mir or they refrained from accusing anybody for the crime they were subjected to. Blaming the Director General of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) for the attack on Hamid Mir led the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) to come out with a strongly worded denial that subsided the furor to a certain extent but could not quash the debate on the subject completely.

Amid these denials and accusations a very alarming reality came to the surface. The security agencies, despite all their legal and constitutional coverage, appeared to have lacked the level of credence that most of the outlawed organisations enjoy in the country. Last year, there were at least 67 major incidents of violence that were claimed to have been committed by different outlawed organisations, leaving 650 persons dead and over 1,300 injured. Among the claimants were the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) (248 deaths), LeJ (170), TTP–Junood Hifsa (94), TTP–Ansarul Islam (123), AQ/TTP (8), Jaishul Islam (6) and Lashkar-e-Islami (2). The deaths of 650 persons could not jolt the country as forcefully as the injury of one person has shaken us. I do not mean to belittle the crime committed against Hamid Mir but I mean to show the height of our indifference towards the loss of precious human lives of our own people. Neither the press nor the government ever elevated the issue of these unfortunate people to such a level.

It also reminds me of the recent incident where three staff members of a private news channel were killed by armed men in North Nazimabad on January 18, 2014. The way the incident was reported was an example of how journalistic ethics were compromised for commercial or ideological considerations: The journalist’s community has a long history of struggling against censorship, which was once a very effective tool of the government to suppress press freedom for dissemination of information to the people. Now that the press enjoys lots of freedom, a new form of censorship is emerging that is being exercised on ideological and political grounds. Commercial interests and conflicts play their role too.

The report that appeared in a popular daily on January 18, 2014 lacked a very vital bit of information of the incident when, for some unknown reasons, it did not include the claim of the Taliban for their attack on media house employees. The following is an excerpt from the Taliban’s claim that appeared in a popular daily on the same day: “The TTP spokesman explained that ‘this is a war of ideologies and whosoever will oppose us in this war of ideologies, will play the role of enemy and we will also attack them. They were killed because they were a part of the propaganda against us. I also want to tell them that they should not work at the media channels whose names we have also mentioned. Secondly, we have sacrificed to achieve our goal.’”

Despite an open admission by the Taliban for the attack that left three innocent persons dead, the media house that employs Hamid Mir elected to censor this information. They might have tried to exercise restraint in dissemination of information that probably appeared to them as being premature. However, what compelled them not to exercise similar restraint in accusing the Director General ISI for a crime that was simply based on hearsay is incomprehensible. Does this mean that the ISI’s credibility is not as good as the Taliban’s credibility in the eyes of a leading newspaper?

Deviations from good journalistic practices have landed the news media community in a turmoil that has no precedent. They are now reaping what they have sown and it is a lesson for all those who prefer their problems over others’. The history of the news media is full of events that played prominent roles in restoring democracy in the country. What we are witnessing now is an unfortunate situation where the news media appears to have been divided on lines that either support the militants or the armed forces, whereas the basic question is of principles. All institutions, whether the government or the media industry, should avoid censoring facts or maligning any person(s) or institutions, civil or military, on flimsy or unsubstantiated proofs. All other debates or discussions are irrelevant.