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Exposing the Pakistani establishment's links with terrorists can be a hazardous job. It cost Daniel Pearl his life, and Shaheen Sehbai, former editor of 'The News', a widely-read English daily in Pakistan his job. Fearing for his life, Sehbai is now in the US He speaks to Shobha John about the pressure on journalists from the powers-that-be in Pakistan:
Q. Is it true you had to quit because
a news report angered the government?
A. On February 16, our Karachi
reporter, Kamran Khan, filed a story quoting Omar Sheikh as saying that
he was behind the attack on the Indian Parliament on December 13, the Kashmir
assembly attack and other terrorist acts in India. Shortly after I am,
I got a call on my cellphone from Ashfaq Gondal, the principal information
officer of the government, telling me that the Inter-Services Intelligence
(ISI) had intercepted the story and I should stop its publication.
I told him I was not prepared to do so. He then called my newspaper group owner/editor-in-chief, Mir Shakil ur Rehman in London and asked him to stop the story. Rehman stopped it in the Jang, the sister newspaper in Urdu but could not do so in The News as I was unavailable.
The next day, all editions of The News carried the story. It was also carried by The Washington Post and The International Herald Tribune the same day, as Kamran also reports for The Post. On February 18, all government advertising for the entire group was stopped.
On February 22, Rehman rushed to Karachi and called a meeting at 10 p m. He told me the government was “very angry” at the story. He said he had been told to sack four journalists, including myself, if the ads were to be restored. He asked me to proceed to Islamabad to pacify the officials. Sham informed us that he had contacted the officials and was told by Anwar Mahmood, the information secretary that “the matter was now beyond his capacity and we will have to see the ISI high-ups to resolve it”. I was told to go and see the ISI chief in Islamabad and also to call Anwar Mahmood on Eid and improve my 'public relations' with him.
I left the meeting with the firm resolve that I would neither call nor meet anyone, even at gunpoint. Sham, however, left for Islamabad to meet the officials. His meetings were unsuccessful. From my sources, I learned that the ISI and the government were not prepared to lift the ban unless I gave them specific assurances. If I refused, there may be trouble for me as the owner was already under pressure to fire me and the other three journalists.
On February 27, I took a flight out of Karachi to New York. On February 28, I received a memo from my owner accusing me of policy violations. In reply, on March 1, I sent in my resignation.
Q. Is the ISI still keeping a close
watch on journalists after Daniel Pearl's killing?
A. The ISI has been a major player
in domestic politics and continues to be so. That means it has to control
the media and right now, it is actively involved in doing so. Pearl's murder
has given them more reasons to activate the national interest excuse.
Q. Is there a sense of desperation
within the Pakistan government that it should not be linked in any way
to events in India?
A. Yes. That's why when our story
quoted Omar Sheikh claiming such links, the government came down hard on
us.
Q. Has there been any pressure on
the staff of 'The News' to 'conform'?
A. Yes. The News was under constant
pressure to stop its aggressive reporting on the corruption of the present
government. A few months back, Pakistan International Airlines stopped
all ads to The News as we ran a couple of exposes. A major story on the
government owned United Bank was blocked when we sought the official version.
Intelligence agencies were deputed to tail our reporters in Islamabad.
Q. This is not the first time you
and your family have been under pressure, is it?
A. I have been the target of physical
attacks in the past too for stories against the government. The first was
in August 1990 when I was arrested and detained for 36 hours and falsely
charged for drinking, before a judge gave bail. The second time, in December
1991, three masked men broke into my house in Islamabad, ransacked it,
pulled guns on my two sons, beat them up and told them, “Tell your father
to write against the government again and see what happens”. In 1995, I
was threatened once again and I had to take my entire family away. My newspaper
then, Dawn, decided to post me to Washington as their correspondent. This
time, I feared that I could be physically targeted again. So I decided
to leave the country.
Q. Is the present regime in Pakistan
any different from earlier ones with regard to freedom of the press?
A. It has tolerated some freedom
under foreign pressure, but the situation is basically the same. Now Musharraf
appears to be under pressure to manage the media more effectively in order
to manage the October elections and get his supporters elected in the polls.
He needs to legitimise his military rule through a political process, which
essentially is being rigged from the beginning.
Q. Is your case the first instance
of a crackdown on the media by this government?
A. This was the first case of a
major financial squeeze on the country's largest media group. It was followed
by demands to sack me and other senior journalists and then to change the
policy.
Q. How independent will the forthcoming
polls be now?
A. They will be as independent
as the recently-concluded local bodies polls in which candidates were named
by the army and no one else was allowed to win. Candidates for state and
national assemblies are now being pre-selected and influential politicians
are being pressured, lured or coerced to join Musharrafs supporters.
Q. What is the mood within the
Pakistani media?
A. The media is generally quiet
and has fallen in line because Musharraf is getting strong support from
the US and the West. But elements in the media are very resolute and they
will fight back as soon as they see Musharraf losing his grip. The October
polls will determine the role of the media as well because if Musharraf
fails to 'manage' the elections, his control over the media will be finished.
Q. What do you propose to do now?
A. I will be writing out of Washington
for some time and will return to Pakistan around the October polls. My
days in Pakistan were very exciting as I maintained a completely independent
editorial policy and pursued it to the last day. In the memos written by
the owner, he repeatedly complains that I was not consulting him on policies.
I had no need to, as he watches his own commercial interests.
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