Pakistan January 5, 2010

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:

We, the Freedom of the Press Committee of the Overseas Press Club of America, write to you of the frightening condition of journalists in your country, recently reported as the fourth most dangerous nation for the media. For more than seventy years, we have been among the prime watchdogs over the freedom and rights of expression of our international colleagues and we understand the unique complexity of those issues for your government at the present moment. However, though ruthless and violent attacks against the media are from militants, the Taliban, or the religious sects in Pakistan, government support of the press has been insufficient, even negligent.

We write to protest not only the extraordinary neglect that led to the suicide bombing at the Press Club in Peshawar, but lack of protection from the consistent harassment and threats to journalists in Balochistan, the Federally Administered Frontier area, as well as in Kashmir where the press faces harassment not only from the Jihadists, but from the intelligence agencies and the military. Journalists in your country know they are unsafe, but continue their work with amazing dedication to their profession.

The hard fact is this: your government itself is unfavorable to a free press. Under the previous military government, freedom of expression for the media flourished and grew. What an irony that after a democratic election of a representative government, you are in the process of destroying one of the strongest advocates of those democratic elections and your ascendancy. The current laws now in debate in parliament are unacceptable.

Members of the National Committee on Communication have proposed additional amendments to the Pakistan Electronic Media Authority, which are now under consideration, that would outlaw the broadcasting of any language that is counter to the ideology of Pakistan or its sovereignty or the security of the state, defames or ridicules the head of state, armed forces, or the legislative, executive or judicial branch of the government. This is an enormous and indefensible step backward since the years of the military government, and a total contradiction of the phrase, “democracy equals freedom of expression”.

We urge you, Mr. President, to immediately declare such palpable censorship invalid and in opposition to the struggles in which Pakistan is now so seriously engaged. All of the world is following your situation and can only condemn the shortsightedness of such legislation.

We will welcome the courtesy of a reply.

Respectfully yours,
Jacqueline Albert-Simon
Jeremy Main
Freedom of the Press Committee

cc:

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. Anne W. Patterson
U.S. Ambassador to Pakistan
Embassy of the United States of America
Diplomatic Enclave, Ramna 5
Islamabad
Pakistan
Fax: (011.92.51) 227.6427

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)