25 Jun 2018 | Global Journalist, Media Freedom, News, Pakistan
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]This article is part of Index on Censorship partner Global Journalist’s Project Exile series, which has published interviews with exiled journalists from around the world.[/vc_column_text][vc_single_image image=”101034″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes”][vc_column_text]
Jumping out of a car to escape being abducted at gunpoint by the Pakistani military isn’t exactly how journalist Taha Siddiqui planned to start his trip to London.
Siddiqui, then a Pakistan correspondent for the network France 24 and the Indian news site WION, had angered the South Asian nation’s military with his reporting on national security issues and critical posts on social media.
On 10 January the problems caught up with him as he rode to the airport in a Careem, a popular ride-hailing service in the capital Islamabad. A car with armed men in it forced Siddiqui’s driver to stop. He was beaten by the side of the highway and the men forced him into the back of a vehicle and started to drive off with him.
Pakistani media is noted for its lively and diverse news coverage. Yet reporters in the country face threats not just from extremist groups like the Taliban but from the military and intelligence agencies.
The country ranks 139th out of 180 countries on Reporters Without Borders’ World Press Freedom Index, and in recent months independent media like Geo TV and Dawn newspaper have been blocked from distribution. Earlier this month two reporters were attacked in Lahore shortly after a military spokesman condemned “anti-state” remarks made by journalists on social media.
As Siddiqui told Global Journalist, he was able to escape from his captors and report the attack to the police. The kidnapping attempt wasn’t the first time Siddiqui had problems with Pakistan’s military. In 2015, he was threatened after he co-wrote a lengthy New York Times article detailing how the military had disappeared dozens of suspected Pakistani Taliban members. The article included allegations that some of those disappeared were starved, tortured and killed.
He was also threatened after helping produce a France 24 report critical of the Pakistani army’s handling of a 2014 school massacre in Peshawar that left over 150 dead. Siddiqui had also faced pressure last year after posting tweets critical of the military’s “glorifying” of past dictators and its whitewashing of its role in fomenting a 1965 war with India.
In May 2017 he was summoned for questioning by the federal police’s counter-terrorism department despite a court order banning them from harassing him. In September, Siddiqui was called to meet with the military’s spokesman, Gen. Asif Ghafoor. In an interview, Siddiqui says Ghafoor told him that if he didn’t stop his criticism, “I would get myself into trouble.”
Ghafoor did not respond to messages seeking comment from Global Journalist. Yet trouble didn’t come until the January attack, and Siddiqui can’t point to one specific incident as a cause.
“I don’t know what specific story, article or video triggered it,” he says in an interview with Global Journalist. “Or was it just my social media activity?”
Weeks after the attack, Siddiqui, decided to leave Pakistan for France for security reasons. Before he left, he says he met with Pakistan’s then interior minister, Ahsan Iqbal. Iqbal, Siddiqui says, told the journalist he should write a letter to Gen. Qamar Bajwa, Pakistan’s army chief, and beg for forgiveness. Neither Iqbal nor Bajwa responded to requests for comment.
Now 34, Siddiqui lives with his wife and 4-year-old son in Paris, where he is working part-time with the media company Babel Press and looking for a full-time job. He spoke with Global Journalist’s Rosemary Belson about his attack and flight from his homeland.
Global Journalist: Can you tell us about the reporting that landed you in hot water?
Siddiqui: The military is politically-involved in Pakistan. They have businesses, they are involved in human rights abuses, education.
When reporting in Pakistan about any particular issue, usually you end up tracking it back to the military in some way or another. It’s impossible to report without talking about the military and its involvement in a wide range of issues in Pakistan.
I refer to a story that I did for the New York Times. It came out on the front page of the International New York Times in 2015. It was a story about military secret prisons where they were killing suspected militants. They were extrajudicially killing them inside the jails. I uncovered about 100 to 250 cases across Pakistan, especially in the Tribal Belt [in northwest Pakistan].
Even at that time, the New York Times thought it was quite risky for my name to go on it. But I wanted my byline on it and that was the first time I started receiving direct threats.
There were always indirect messages coming in through friends in the journalism business or friends in the government saying that I should be careful… Constantly on and off these threats would come. Even to the extent where my friends and people I socialized with were told to stay away from me.
GJ: Walk us through the attempted abduction.
Siddiqui: On 10 January I was headed to the airport to catch a flight to London for work. The week before that I was working on a story about missing persons. I was supposed to file the story from the airport because I didn’t have [time] to file it before, so I took [my] hard drive and laptop.
My Careem came around 8 a.m. for my flight at noon. Halfway to the airport on the main Islamabad highway, a car swerved in front of me and stopped. Armed men got out of the vehicle with pistols and AK-47s.
At first, I thought it was a case of road rage or robbery, but one of them approached from my side and pointed his gun towards me and said something along the lines of: “Who do you think you are?”
I got out and assumed that this had something to do with the threats I had been receiving. I tried to run away but they pinned me down on the road. That’s when I noticed there was another car behind me with people coming out of it as well. They made a barricade around me, and this was [on] the main highway at 8:30 in the morning, with traffic…they started beating me and wanted to take me away.
I was resisting and they kept hitting me with the butts of their guns…and kicking me. Finally, one of them said, “Shoot him in the leg if he doesn’t stop resisting because we have to take him.”
That’s when I realized they were serious about shooting me. Earlier, [when] they didn’t shoot me right away, I thought perhaps it means they want to take me alive. In my mind I was thinking that resistance would give me some lifeline. I saw a military vehicle passing by. I called out for help but it didn’t stop.
After being threatened by being shot in the leg, they put me in the taxi, and took out the driver. One person drove while two people sat with me in the back and one in the front. They were holding me in a headlock with a gun pointing to the left side of my body on my stomach.
I told him, “I’m going with you. Can you relax for a little bit and let me relax also, [and] sit up straight?”
The guy relaxed his arm and gun. That’s when I realized the right back door of the car was unlocked. I went for it, opened it. I jumped out, ran to the other side of the road with oncoming traffic. I tried to look for a taxi. I could hear behind me they were shouting and saying, “Shoot him!”
But I just ran and finally I found a taxi. I got into it while it was moving. I opened the door, jumped into it. The taxi took me 700 or 800 meters before realizing there was something wrong and [the driver] didn’t want to help me anymore. So they asked me to get out because it was already occupied by some women.
I got out of the taxi. On the side of the road, there were some ditches and a marsh area, so I jumped into that and hid there for a bit. I took off my red sweater because I was worried they’d see me…we later recovered the sweater with the police.
I found another taxi. I asked to use [the driver’s] phone. I called a journalist friend and asked him what to do. He suggested I go to the nearest police station and the taxi driver took me. I filed a report where I named the Pakistan military as a suspect. I also tweeted about it from a friend’s account because they had taken my phone, passport, suitcase, laptop, bag. I only had my wallet left on me.
GJ: How did you make the decision to leave Pakistan?
Siddiqui: The police investigation found that the [surveillance] cameras in the area weren’t working. They found one of the cars that stopped me was following me from my house but they couldn’t identify any of the faces inside the car because [the windows] were tinted and the license plate was fake.
I was invited [to a meeting] by the Interior Minister of Pakistan [Ahsan Iqbal]. He suggested that I should write a letter to the Pakistan Army Chief [Gen. Qamar Bajwa]. That’s when I realized the government was totally helpless.
People suggested that I go away for awhile because they didn’t finish the job and they might come again. Especially since I wasn’t going silent, as was suggested by some senior journalist friends who later turned their back to me during this ordeal.
It was really disappointing and depressing seeing my own journalist community not supporting me. The international media supported me, some local journalists supported me, but some people that I knew personally thought I was going the wrong way by being vocal about the attack.
Me, my wife…we sat down together and discussed. We didn’t tell my kid at the time but now I’ve gently told him how there’s a safety issue for me and we had to move.
We decided that we should get out. If we are getting out, it wasn’t going to be a three or six-month thing, because I’m fighting invisible forces in my country. I will not know if I’ve won or lost or whether they’re still after me or not.
We decided on Paris because I had been working with the French media for the last seven or eight years as a journalist for France 24. I also received the French equivalent of the Pulitzer prize [the Albert Londres prize] in 2014, so I have strong journalistic support and community here.
GJ: How has media freedom changed over time in Pakistan?
Siddiqui: Press freedom has always been under attack. We’ve gone through military dictatorships in Pakistan…through the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s.
Two things have changed in recent years. One, we as journalists don’t know what the red lines are. In my case, I don’t know what specific story, article or video triggered it. Or was it just my social media activity?
Secondly, non-state actors are now being activated against journalists so [the military] can hide behind those non-state actors and get the job done.
The military has ensured that unity among journalists is not as it used to be. They have done that through financial coercion or financial rewards…it’s further shrunk the space for journalists. The military is becoming more intolerant and its tactics to control the media are becoming more violent. I see the situation becoming worse in the coming days.
This all needs to be put in context. It’s an election year in Pakistan. The Pakistani military wants all of this room to manipulate elections for strategic gains. They don’t want the ruling party [Pakistan Muslim League – Nawaz] to come into power again with a similar majority to what they enjoy right now. So to make sure they can easily manipulate the elections, they are trying to develop an environment of fear where independent reporting can’t happen.
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_video link=”https://youtu.be/6BIZ7b0m-08″][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_column_text]Index on Censorship partner Global Journalist is a website that features global press freedom and international news stories as well as a weekly radio program that airs on KBIA, mid-Missouri’s NPR affiliate, and partner stations in six other states. The website and radio show are produced jointly by professional staff and student journalists at the University of Missouri’s School of Journalism, the oldest school of journalism in the United States. [/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”Don’t lose your voice. Stay informed.” use_theme_fonts=”yes”][vc_separator color=”black”][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/2″][vc_column_text]Index on Censorship is a nonprofit that campaigns for and defends free expression worldwide. We publish work by censored writers and artists, promote debate, and monitor threats to free speech. We believe that everyone should be free to express themselves without fear of harm or persecution – no matter what their views.
Join our mailing list (or follow us on Twitter or Facebook). We’ll send you our weekly newsletter, our monthly events update and periodic updates about our activities defending free speech. We won’t share, sell or transfer your personal information to anyone outside Index.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/2″][gravityform id=”20″ title=”false” description=”false” ajax=”false”][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row full_width=”stretch_row_content”][vc_column][three_column_post title=”Global Journalist / Project Exile” full_width_heading=”true” category_id=”22142″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
19 Apr 2018 | Awards, News
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Each year, the Index on Censorship Freedom of Expression Awards gala honours courageous champions who fight for free speech around the world.
Drawn from more than 400 crowdsourced nominations, this year’s nominees include artists, journalists, campaigners and digital activists tackling censorship and fighting for freedom of expression. Many of the 16 shortlisted are regularly targeted by authorities or by criminal and extremist groups for their work: some face regular death threats, others criminal prosecution.
The gala takes place on Thursday 19 April in London and will be hosted by stand-up poet Kate Fox.
We will be live tweeting throughout the evening on @IndexCensorship. Get involved in the conversation using the hashtag #IndexAwards2018. Listen LIVE beginning at 7:30pm BST on Resonance FM
Index on Censorship Freedom of Expression Awards nominees 2018
Arts
Jamal Ali, Azerbaijan
Jamal Ali is an exiled rap musician with a history of challenging Azerbaijan’s authoritarian regime. Ali was one of many who took to the streets in 2012 to protest spending around the country’s hosting of the Eurovision song contest. Detained and tortured for his role in the protests, he went into exile after his life was threatened. Ali has persisted in challenging the government by releasing music critical of the country’s dynastic leadership. Following the release of one song, Ali’s mother was arrested in a senseless display of aggression. In provoking such a harsh response with a single action, Ali has highlighted the repressive nature of the regime and its ruthless desire to silence all dissent.
Full profile
Silvanos Mudzvova, Zimbabwe
Playwright and activist Silvanos Mudzvova uses performance to protest against the repressive regime of recently toppled President Robert Mugabe and to agitate for greater democracy and rights for his country’s LGBT community. Mudzvova specialises in performing so-called “hit-and-run” actions in public places to grab the attention of politicians and defy censorship laws, which forbid public performances without police clearance. His activism has seen him be traumatically abducted: taken at gunpoint from his home he was viciously tortured with electric shocks. Nonetheless, Mudzvova has resolved to finish what he’s started and has been vociferous about the recent political change in Zimbabwe.
Full profile
The Museum of Dissidence, Cuba
The Museum of Dissidence is a public art project and website celebrating dissent in Cuba. Set up in 2016 by acclaimed artist Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara and curator Yanelys Nuñez Leyva, their aim is to reclaim the word “dissident” and give it a positive meaning in Cuba. The museum organises radical public art projects and installations, concentrated in the poorer districts of Havana. Their fearlessness in opening dialogues and inhabiting public space has led to fierce repercussions: Nuñez was sacked from her job and Otero arrested and threatened with prison for being a “counter-revolutionary.” Despite this, they persist in challenging Cuba’s restrictions on expression.
Full profile
Abbad Yahya, Palestine
Abbad Yahya is a Palestinian author whose novel, Crime in Ramallah, was banned by the Palestinian Authority in 2017. The book tackles taboo issues such as homosexuality, fanaticism and religious extremism. It provoked a rapid official response and all copies of the book were seized. The public prosecutor issued a summons for questioning against Yahya while the distributor of the novel was arrested and interrogated. Yahya also received threats and copies of the book were burned. Despite this, he has spent the last year raising awareness of freedom of expression and the lives of young people in the West Bank and Gaza, particularly in relation to their sexuality.
Full profile
Campaigning
Egyptian Commission for Rights and Freedoms, Egypt
The Egyptian Commission for Rights and Freedoms is one of the few human rights organisations still operating in a country which has waged an orchestrated campaign against independent civil society groups. Egypt is becoming increasingly hostile to dissent, but ECRF continues to provide advocacy, legal support and campaign coordination, drawing attention to the many ongoing human rights abuses under the autocratic rule of President Abdel Fattah-el-Sisi. Their work has seen them subject to state harassment, their headquarters have been raided and staff members arrested. ECRF are committed to carrying on with their work regardless of the challenges.
Full profile
National Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission, Kenya
The National Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission is the only organisation in Kenya challenging and preventing LGBTI discrimination through the country’s courts. Even though homosexuality isn’t illegal in Kenya, homosexual acts are. Homophobia is commonplace and men who have sex with men can be punished by up to 14 years in prison, and while no specific laws relate to women, former Prime Minister Raila Odinga has said lesbians should also be imprisoned. NGLHRC has had an impact by successfully lobbying MPs to scrap a proposed anti-homosexuality bill and winning agreement from the Kenya Medical Association to stop forced anal examination of clients.
Full profile
Open Stadiums, Iran
The women behind Open Stadiums risk their lives to assert a woman’s right to attend public sporting events in Iran. The campaign challenges the country’s political and religious regime, and engages women in an issue many human rights activists have previously thought unimportant. Iranian women face many restrictions on using public space. Open Stadiums has generated broad support for their cause in and out of the country. As a result, MPs and people in power are beginning to talk about women’s rights to attend sporting events in a way that would have been taboo before.
Full profile
Team 29, Russia
Team 29 is an association of lawyers and journalists that defends those targeted by the state for exercising their right to freedom of speech in Russia. It is crucial work in a climate where hundreds of civil society organisations have been forced to close and where increasingly tight restrictions have been placed on public protest and political dissent since mass demonstrations rocked Russia in 2012. Team 29 conducts about 50 court cases annually, many involving accusations of high treason. Aside from litigation, they offer legal guides for activists and advice on what to do when summoned by state security for interrogation.
Full profile
Digital Activism
Digital Rights Foundation, Pakistan
In late 2016, the Digital Rights Foundation established a cyber-harassment helpline that supported more than a thousand women in its first year of operation alone. Women make up only about a quarter of the online population in Pakistan but routinely face intense bullying including the use of revenge porn, blackmail, and other kinds of harassment. Often afraid to report how badly they are treated, women react by withdrawing from online spaces. To counter this, DRF’s Cyber Harassment Helpline team includes a qualified psychologist, digital security expert, and trained lawyer, all of whom provide specialised assistance.
Full profile
Fereshteh Forough, Afghanistan
Fereshteh Forough is the founder and executive director of Code to Inspire, a coding school for girls in Afghanistan. Founded in 2015, this innovative project helps women and girls learn computer programming with the aim of tapping into commercial opportunities online and fostering economic independence in a country that remains a highly patriarchal and conservative society. Forough believes that with programming skills, an internet connection and using bitcoin for currency, Afghan women can not only create wealth but challenge gender roles and gain independence.
Full profile
Habari RDC, Congo
Launched in 2016, Habari RDC is a collective of more than 100 young Congolese bloggers and web activists, who use Facebook, Twitter and YouTube to give voice to the opinions of young people from all over the Democratic Republic of Congo. Their site posts stories and cartoons about politics, but it also covers football, the arts and subjects such as domestic violence, child exploitation, the female orgasm and sexual harassment at work. Habari RDC offers a distinctive collection of funny, angry and modern Congolese voices, who are demanding to be heard.
Full profile
Mèdia.cat, Spain
Mèdia.cat is a Catalan website devoted to highlighting media freedom violations and investigating under-reported stories. Unique in Spain, it was a particularly significant player in 2017 when the disputed independence referendum brought issues of censorship and the impartiality of news under the spotlight. The website provides an online platform that systematically catalogues censorship perpetrated in the region. Its map on censorship offers a way for journalists to report on abuses they have personally suffered.
Journalism
Avispa Midia, Mexico
Avispa Midia is an independent online magazine that prides itself on its use of multimedia techniques to bring alive the political, economic and social worlds of Mexico and Latin America. It specialises in investigations into organised crime and the paramilitaries behind mining mega-projects, hydroelectric dams and the wind and oil industry. Many of Avispa’s reports in the last 12 months have been focused on Mexico and Central America, where the media group has helped indigenous and marginalised communities report on their own stories through audio and video training.
Wendy Funes, Honduras
Wendy Funes is an investigative journalist from Honduras who regularly risks her life for her right to report on what is happening in the country, an extremely harsh environment for reporters. Two journalists were murdered in 2017 and her father and friends are among those who have met violent deaths in the country – killings for which no one has ever been brought to justice. Funes meets these challenges with creativity and determination. For one article she had her own death certificate issued to highlight corruption. Funes also writes about violence against women, a huge problem in Honduras where one woman is killed every 16 hours.
MuckRock, United States
MuckRock is a non-profit news site used by journalists, activists and members of the public to request and share US government documents in pursuit of more transparency. MuckRock has shed light on government surveillance, censorship and police militarisation among other issues. MuckRock produces its own reporting, and helps others learn more about requesting information. Last year the site produced a Freedom of Information Act 4 Kidz lesson plan to help educators to start discussions about government transparency. Since then, they have expanded their reach to Canada. The organisation hopes to continue increasing their impact by putting transparency tools in the hands of journalists, researchers and ordinary citizens.
Novosti, Croatia
Novosti is a weekly Serbian-language magazine in Croatia. Although fully funded as a Serb minority publication by the Serbian National Council, it deals with a whole range of topics, not only those directly related to the minority status of Croatian Serbs. In the past year, the outlet’s journalists have faced attacks and death threats mainly from the ultra-conservative far-right. For its reporting, the staff of Novosti have been met with protest under the windows of the magazine’s offices shouting fascist slogans and anti-Serbian insults, and told they would end up killed like Charlie Hebdo journalists. Despite the pressure, the weekly persists in writing the truth and defending freedom of expression.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_basic_grid post_type=”post” max_items=”12″ style=”load-more” items_per_page=”4″ element_width=”6″ grid_id=”vc_gid:1524073803130-58a2be32-5f5a-7″ taxonomies=”8935″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
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