Pakistan: murdered journalists accused of "working for Christians"
Thanks to one of my correspondents in Pakistan to send me this very worrying news: one week ago, one Pakistani newspaper, The Daily Times, received a fax from a group calling itself "Sipah-e-Islam" (Soldiers of Islam) claiming responsibility for the killing of two journalists in South Waziristan on 7 February 2005. Amir Nowab and Allah Noor (see former posting) were the first journalists to be killed in 2005, one of them working for the Frontier Post. "Some journalists are working for Christians while disguising themselves as mediamen. They are used as tools in the negative propaganda of Christians against the Muslim mujahideen," said the claim.
My worry is that the Pakistani press was very quick to denounce the murders, but didn't take attention to this new claim linking religion and journalism. Another possibility is that the claim wouldn't be serious. Even in this case, the attack against Christians (around 1% of the country's population) is worrying. Source: The Daily Times
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As someone covering the region, worrying as it is, all the more because two journalists were shot and killed, I am not inclined to accept the veracity of Sipah-i-Islami or the claim that it has made. I remember, receiving faxes every now and then when the U.s was about to launch its campaign in Afghanistan by this or that outfit, not heard of before. I think, we as journalists need to apply our minds before jumping to any conclusion and misleading our readers to come to wrong conclusion. No such organisation by the name of Sipah-i-Islami exists. Period. I think, and there are reasons to believe, that it was an attempt to hush up tribal journalists from reporting on the presence of foreign militants in South Waziristan and I think, going by an incident in North Waziritan and its reporting by tribal journalists who did not want to be named or datelined the story to N. Waziristan, those behind the murder achieved their objective.
bests
ismail khan