A version of this article appeared in The Express Tribune on June 2, 2011
On May 26 Syed Saleem Shahzad wrote in Asia Times Online that the attack on naval base Mehran was in retaliation for an internal crackdown on al-Qaeda cells within the Pakistan Navy. Shahzad was Asia Times’ South Asia Bureau Chief and an internationally renowned journalist. On May 29 he went missing in Islamabad. On May 31 he was found dead.
Shahzad’s killing underscores the need to understand the context of media freedom in Pakistan. Former President General Pervez Musharraf made much hay out of the fact that he liberalized and freed Pakistani media. But according to fascinating research conducted by award-winning journalist and the Pakistan Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Centre, Huma Yusuf, increased freedom for Pakistani broadcast media was an idea whose strategic time had come.
On May 26 Syed Saleem Shahzad wrote in Asia Times Online that the attack on naval base Mehran was in retaliation for an internal crackdown on al-Qaeda cells within the Pakistan Navy. Shahzad was Asia Times’ South Asia Bureau Chief and an internationally renowned journalist. On May 29 he went missing in Islamabad. On May 31 he was found dead.
Shahzad’s killing underscores the need to understand the context of media freedom in Pakistan. Former President General Pervez Musharraf made much hay out of the fact that he liberalized and freed Pakistani media. But according to fascinating research conducted by award-winning journalist and the Pakistan Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Centre, Huma Yusuf, increased freedom for Pakistani broadcast media was an idea whose strategic time had come.
At the turn of the century Pakistani leaders realized the futility of restricting the flow of information over satellite signals and the internet. Keeping the Pakistani people cloistered from happenings in their own country and in the world was becoming increasingly untenable. The light of this realization illuminated a newly rising strategic threat: the tide of Indian news and programming rushing over the border. Moreover, this “Indian media propaganda” as it was termed proved popular from Kabul to Cairo, shaping popular regional perceptions in a manner seen detrimental to Pakistani interests.
The Government of Pakistan scarcely possessed the resources and capacity to directly mount effective resistance. The only option left was to liberalize the media industry to provide an alternate narrative to Pakistanis and others at home and abroad. Thus the decision to free Pakistan’s media was not taken out of a sense of locking step with the march of history. It was made with an eye to strategic doctrine.
“Media propaganda” then is a weapon to manage Pakistani opinion rather than inform it. Pakistani media is free only insofar as it largely adheres to this strategic vision as a mouthpiece for the establishment, or at least by being innocuous and subservient. An expanded wing within Inter Services Public Relations (the official military PR agency) closely monitors news reports, particularly those impacting strategic issues. A number of tactics come into play when the media loses the script.
The first is financial incentives. The scale can be gauged by recent revelations that in 2007 the Ministry of Information operated a Rs. 570 million slush fund for the purpose of buying journalists and placing fake news stories. The recent fake “Indian Wikileaks” story shows this approach remains pervasive.
Failing this, there is intimidation and coercion. Threats are called in, and recalcitrant journalists can be subject to beatings and torture. In one case in 2007, a 14 year old boy was beaten and put into hospital when his journalist father fingered intelligence agencies in the manhandling of the Chief Justice.
More fatal methods are reserved for journalists whose transgressions directly threaten the establishment. In 2005 Hayatullah Khan broke the story about American drone strikes in Pakistan. Khan went missing shortly after; a few months later his body was found handcuffed with a bullet to the back of the head.
Similarly, Saleem Shahzad’s intrepid journalism threatened the establishment’s narrative. He overstepped the line in the sand drawn in the blood of those that have gone before him.
According to Reporters Without Borders, media in Pakistan is becoming freer, but it is also the most dangerous places in the world to be a journalist – even more than all-out war-zones. Perhaps this indicates a trend that the Pakistani media is becoming more willing to challenge the narratives of the establishment and those non-state actors equally ruthless in managing their public relations. This is a worthy, but very costly, hope to cling to.
Shahzad’s life was not inherently more precious than the dozens of other journalists in Pakistan that are killed or tortured each year. But his courageous life and tragic death can become a symbol of resistance to an establishment that purports to hold a monopoly over truth and the “national interest”. For Syed Saleem Shahzad spoke truth to power. His death shows that power does not usually listen to truth, and as often tries to silence it. But people do listen. Let us not mourn in silence.
The Government of Pakistan scarcely possessed the resources and capacity to directly mount effective resistance. The only option left was to liberalize the media industry to provide an alternate narrative to Pakistanis and others at home and abroad. Thus the decision to free Pakistan’s media was not taken out of a sense of locking step with the march of history. It was made with an eye to strategic doctrine.
“Media propaganda” then is a weapon to manage Pakistani opinion rather than inform it. Pakistani media is free only insofar as it largely adheres to this strategic vision as a mouthpiece for the establishment, or at least by being innocuous and subservient. An expanded wing within Inter Services Public Relations (the official military PR agency) closely monitors news reports, particularly those impacting strategic issues. A number of tactics come into play when the media loses the script.
The first is financial incentives. The scale can be gauged by recent revelations that in 2007 the Ministry of Information operated a Rs. 570 million slush fund for the purpose of buying journalists and placing fake news stories. The recent fake “Indian Wikileaks” story shows this approach remains pervasive.
Failing this, there is intimidation and coercion. Threats are called in, and recalcitrant journalists can be subject to beatings and torture. In one case in 2007, a 14 year old boy was beaten and put into hospital when his journalist father fingered intelligence agencies in the manhandling of the Chief Justice.
More fatal methods are reserved for journalists whose transgressions directly threaten the establishment. In 2005 Hayatullah Khan broke the story about American drone strikes in Pakistan. Khan went missing shortly after; a few months later his body was found handcuffed with a bullet to the back of the head.
Similarly, Saleem Shahzad’s intrepid journalism threatened the establishment’s narrative. He overstepped the line in the sand drawn in the blood of those that have gone before him.
According to Reporters Without Borders, media in Pakistan is becoming freer, but it is also the most dangerous places in the world to be a journalist – even more than all-out war-zones. Perhaps this indicates a trend that the Pakistani media is becoming more willing to challenge the narratives of the establishment and those non-state actors equally ruthless in managing their public relations. This is a worthy, but very costly, hope to cling to.
Shahzad’s life was not inherently more precious than the dozens of other journalists in Pakistan that are killed or tortured each year. But his courageous life and tragic death can become a symbol of resistance to an establishment that purports to hold a monopoly over truth and the “national interest”. For Syed Saleem Shahzad spoke truth to power. His death shows that power does not usually listen to truth, and as often tries to silence it. But people do listen. Let us not mourn in silence.
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