Press Freedom
CPJ Updates
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- Fragile Progress: The struggle for press freedom in the European Union
- Fragile Progress: Part 1
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- Fragile Progress: Part 3
Reporter Without Borders
Pakistan July 6, 2011
H.E. Asif Al Zadari
President
Office of the President
Awan-E-Sadar
Constitution Avenue
Islamabad
Islamic Republic of Pakistan
Fax: (011.92.51.2) 920.3938
Your Excellency:
Today’s disclosure by The New York Times that American officials have reliable intelligence that Pakistani officials ordered the brutal murder of Saleem Shahzad is deeply troubling. With this news, we have moved from circumstantial and logical inference to an assertion of evidence (not yet, to be sure, disclosed) that the Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence actually killed a critical journalist to keep him silent and intimidate his colleagues.
According to the Times, two senior officials of the Obama Administration have confirmed that Shahzad’s death “was a deliberate, targeted killing that was most likely meant to send shock waves through Pakistan’s journalist community and civil society.” As you know, Shahzad, bureau chief of the Asian Times Online, had infuriated military officials in Pakistan by documenting the Navy’s incompetence, first in preventing and then, in dealing with an attack by Al Qaeda militants on its base in Karachi on May 22.
Your Excellency, if these accusations are substantiated, they will prove that Pakistan’s claims to respect basic human rights and the rule of law are a hollow sham. They will also threaten your government’s relations with the United States and all democratic nations. We urge you to act quickly to get to the bottom of this sorry business and to open every scrap of evidence to public scrutiny. If the facts are as charged, you can restore Pakistan’s good name only by prompt punishment of the officials involved and by sweeping reforms to ensure that human rights and the rule of law — especially as it affects the right of our colleagues in Pakistan to do their jobs — have actual meaning.
Respectfully yours,
Larry Martz
Kevin McDermott
Freedom of the Press Committee
cc’s:
H E. Hussain Haqqani
Ambassador of Pakistan to the U.S.A.
Embassy of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan
3517 International Court, NW
Washington, DC 20008
Ambassador Abdullah Hussain Haroon
Permanent Representative
Permanent Mission of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan to the United Nations
8 East 65th Street
New York, NY 10021
Fax: (212) 744.7348
H.E. Cameron Munter
U.S. Ambassador to Pakistan
Embassy of the United States of America
Diplomatic Enclave, Ramna 5
Islamabad
Pakistan
Fax: (011.92.51) 227.6427
Nurul Kabir
New Age
Holiday Building
30, Tejgaon Industrial Area
Dhaka-1208
Bangladesh
Fax: (011.880.2) 811.2247
Mr. Abbas Nasir
Editor-in-Chief
Dawn TV
Haroon House, Dr. Ziauddin Ahmed Road
Karachi 74200
Pakistan
Fax: (011.92.21) 569.3995
webmaster@dawn.com
Rana Qaisar
Islamabad Resident Editor
Daily Times
Aquhbar Market, Moti Plaza
Murree Road
Rawalpindi
Pakistan
(ranakaisar@hotmail.com)
M.A. Zubari
Editor-in-chief
Business Recorder
Recorder House
531 Business Recorder Road
Karachi 74550
Pakistan
(edkhi@br-mail.com)
Pakistan Press Foundation
ppf@pakistanpressfoundation.org
Maria Otero
Under Secretary of State for Democracy
and Global Affairs
U.S. Department of State
2201 C Street, N.W.
Washington, DC 20520