|
State continues to lie
about detaining Pakistani journalist
Reporters Without
Borders
Pakistan
Authorities deny holding
Khawar Mehdi Rizvi despite statements by President
Pervez Musharraf
A top Pakistani security
services official denied at the Sindh High Court that
they were holding a Pakistani journalist who had worked
with two French reporters. However President Pervez
Musharraf and the foreign ministry both recently said
the journalist had been detained for "investigation".
Reporters
Without Borders (Reporters sans frontières) has
expressed deep shock after the Federal Investigation
Agency (FIA) again denied before two judges at the Sindh
High Court that it was holding Pakistani journalist
Khawar Mehdi Rizvi in custody.
The deputy director of
the FIA Sarwar Khan, as well as the deputy prosecutor
for Pakistan, made the denial on 13 January in response
to a habeas corpus petition lodged earlier by the lawyer
for Rizvi's family, Abid Saqi. However both Pakistani
President Pervez Musharraf and the foreign ministry
spokesman have recently said that the journalist was
being held for "investigation", said Reporters Without
Borders.
French journalists for
the weekly L'Express, Marc Epstein and Jean-Paul
Guilloteau who were working with Rizvi on a report on
the Taliban at the Afghan border saw a six-month jail
term cut to a fine on 12 January and were free to leave
the country.
The international press
freedom organisation said it was very shocked at the
obvious flouting of the law. On one hand the highest
authorities said the security services were holding the
journalist for "investigation", while on the other the
courts had no access to the person detained nor to his
file, it said.
As the two judges in
Karachi said on 13 January, it is offensive to see a
Pakistani journalist held in secret while his French
colleagues are released and allowed to leave the
country. The judges said they were very displeased with
the response from the authorities and called on the
federal government to appear before them on 20 January
and explain Rizvi's situation and the official reasons
for his detention. The international press freedom
organisation also fears that Rizvi has been subjected to
maltreatment since his arrest.
Speaking
about Rizvi to the press on 12 January in Islamabad, the
foreign ministry spokesman said of him, "He is not a
poor chap. We found a faked report on him and the
investigation is going on."
Pakistani President
Pervez Musharraf personally cast doubt on the
professional qualities of Rizvi on 29 December. He told
representatives of the All Pakistan Newspapers Society :
"This freelance journalist has done terrible harm to the
national interest in making this fake film on the
taliban and for only 2,000 dollars. If he had come to me
I would have been able to give him 3,000 dollars not to
make this film."
Rizvi, a freelance
journalist who regularly works with foreign journalists,
is supported by the French newspapers Le Monde and
Libération, French TV channels TF1 and France 2, and US
newspapers The New York Times and The Chicago Tribune.
Epstein and Guilloteau
meanwhile have had their passports returned and were due
to leave Karachi on 13 January. Epstein told Agence
France-Presse, "I am very worried about Khawar because
we have no news of him."
The three journalists
were arrested on 16 December 2003 in Karachi just after
completing a report on taliban groups at the border with
Afghanistan.
Reporters
Without Borders defends imprisoned journalists and press
freedom throughout the world, as well as the right to
inform the public and to be informed, in accordance with
Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Reporters Without borders has nine national sections (in
Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Sweden,
Switzerland, and the United Kingdom), representatives in
Abidjan, Bangkok, Buenos Aires, Istanbul, Montreal,
Moscow, New York, Tokyo and Washington and more than a
hundred correspondents worldwide.
|
