OpEd News - March 22, 2023

Siddique Jan's arrest exposes Pakistan government's repression against journalists

By Abdus-Sattar Ghazali

Amid the ongoing crackdown on the media in Pakistan, Pakistani state authorities have arrested another journalist, Siddique Jan, in the federal capital Islamabad, media reported Monday.

According to media reports, Siddique Jan, who is currently working as Bureau Chief of Bol News TV in Islamabad, was present outside his office when some men in plainclothes whisked him away.

As soon as the news of Siddique Jan's arrest broke out, #ReleaseSiddiqueJan became the top trend on Twitter in Pakistan. National Press Club Islamabad President Anwar Raza, and other journalists expressed solidarity with Siddique Jan and demanded his release.

On Saturday, when former prime minister Imran Khan had arrived in Islamabad from Lahore to attend a court hearing, Siddique Jan was present inside the Federal Judicial Complex where the hearing was to take place. Siddique Jan has been sharing some videos of the police shelling on the PTI supporters outside the Complex.

One of the videos was of officials in plain cloth in the Federal Judicial Complex. Imran Khan showed this video in his address to the nation Monday and questioned what these plain cloth officials were doing in the Federal Judicial Complex.

Imran khan claimed that these officials in plain cloth were there to assassinate me.

In a tweet, Imran Khan, strongly condemned the arrest of Siddique Jan and pointed out that anyone thought to be pro PTI is now brazenly targeted. He said that Imran Riaz, Jamil Faruqi, Sabir Shakir, Sami Ibrahim, Chaudhery Ghulam Hussain and Moeed Pirzada are also being victimized. Imran Khan pointed out that a prominent investigative journalist Arshad Sharif was murdered.

Siddiq Jan was released by an Islamabad Court on Tuesday while the police case against him was dismissed.

Here are some cases of arrests of prominent journalists:

Imran Riaz Khan arrested for alleged hate speech

On February 2, 2023 officers with Pakistan's Federal Investigation Agency arrested Imran Riaz Khan, an anchor with the BOL News and host of a YouTube channel with about 3.8 million subscribers.

A police report said that Khan was engaged in "hate speech" aimed at creating a "rift between the general public and the state institutions" during his speech at a January 30 seminar on violence against journalists in Pakistan, clips of which were shared on social media. In that speech, Khan questioned Qamar Javed Bajwa, a former army general, who said in his final speech before his retirement in November 2022 that the army would remain apolitical in Pakistan.

Tellingly, in January, FIA officers arrested journalist Shahid Aslam, alleging he was involved in coverage of the assets of Bajwa and his family.

He was released on bail on January 18. Police previously detained Imran Riaz Khan from July 5 to 9, 2022, after a slew of cases were registered against him.

On July 14, 2022, authorities ordered Khan off a Dubai-bound flight from the Lahore airport, according to a tweet by the journalist and his lawyer, Mian Ali Ashfaq, who spoke with CPJ.

Journalist found jailed in Pakistan after going missing in Malaysia

On August 23, 2022, freelance Pakistani journalist Syed Fawad Ali Shah went missing in the Malaysian capital of Kuala Lumpur. Shah had lived in Malaysia as a registered refugee since 2011, according to his wife Syeda, who spoke with Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).

Syeda, who asked to be identified by her first name, said that Shah fled Pakistan after he was abducted by agents of the country's military intelligence agency, the ISI, who held him for three and a half months while beating and threatening him in retaliation for his reporting that unfavorably portrayed Pakistan's security forces during the U.S. war on terror.

In January 2023, Malaysian Home Minister Saifuddin Nasution Ismail said in a press conference that Shah had been deported in late August at the request of Pakistani authorities, who alleged that he was a police officer subject to disciplinary proceedings.

Syeda told CPJ that Shah never worked as a police officer, and she believed the ISI worked with Malaysian authorities to repatriate him in retaliation for his journalism. While in exile, Shah wrote about politics and alleged corruption in Pakistan, particularly within law enforcement agencies.

On February 8, 2023, Syeda learned that Shah was being held at the Adiala Jail in the Pakistani city of Rawalpindi, and visited him there the following day. Shah told her that authorities had held him for five months in an underground cell in Islamabad, where they abused him, she said.

In a petition filed at an Islamabad magistrate and dated February 7, 2023, which CPJ reviewed, the Cyber Crime Circle of the Islamabad division of the Federal Investigation Agency claimed that Shah was arrested on January 26, 2023, in relation to an investigation opened the previous January for alleged offenses under the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act (PECA), 2016, and three sections of the penal code pertaining to defamation, criminal intimidation, and obstruction of a public servant.

CPJ has repeatedly documented how the PECA has been used to detain, investigate, and harass journalists in retaliation for their work.

Arshad Sharif assassinated

Tellingly, one of Pakistan's top news anchors Arshad Sharif, who fled Pakistan to avoid arrest over sedition charges a few months back, was shot dead in Kenya in October 2022.

The 49-year-old journalist was living in exile in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) after he fled the country in August to avoid arrest in the wake of multiple cases, including sedition charges, slapped against him for making comments on his show deemed offensive to the military. From the UAE he was forced to flee and took refuge in Kenya where he was assassinated in mysterious circumstances.

Arhsad Sharif was working on a documentary about corruption of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and his family. Nawaz Sharif was sacked because of corruption in July 2017.

In March 2022, Arshad Sharif exposed opposition leaders and workers meetings with the U.S. officials Pakistan prior to the vote of no confidence against Prime Minister of Pakistan. The vote of no confidence was passed and Imran Khan's government was dismissed.

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 The Journal of America Team:

 Editor in chief:
Abdus Sattar Ghazali

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