Meet Dr. General Ziaul Haq, Ph.D. (Courtesy: Abbas Zaidi/Abbas Nasir)

Dr Shershah Syed, a KU graduate and a member of the Pakistan Medical and Dental Council, said that the responsibility for failing varsities didn’t lie with the chancellor alone. “The faculty members and alumni of the relevant institutions must also share the blame, as they didn’t raise their voice and protest against malpractices.” Citing an example, Dr Syed said the Dow International Medical College, which was part of the DUHS, had been deceiving students for many years by lying that a hospital was attached to the varsity. “It’s a small ward and not a hospital as the university claims in its prospectus. On top of that, the institution charges its students an exorbitant fee of $12,000 annually,” he said, adding that no one was taking notice of the severe violation of PMDC rules. He expressed dismay over the prevailing situation and said the discussion could prove futile in that the higher authorities had already decided to extend the services of the DUHS and KU vice chancellors.- First it was the Sitara-e-Imtiaz awards that our government gave out so generously to numerous people that barely deserved them. Now, we are faced with the reality of knowing that our very own Interior Minister Rehman Malik has received an honourary degree of Doctorate from the Karachi University. What’s more shocking than the fact that Malik is now Dr. Malik, is the reason given to explain why he was chosen: The degree has been awarded in recognition of his “matchless services to the country in the war on terror and particularly in restoring peace to the citizens of Karachi.” The fact that thousands have died in the war on terror and are still dying seems to not matter here. The fact that Karachi has lost hundreds in target killings under Malik’s reign also does not seem to make a difference. What seems to be the most disturbing thought on this news however remains, who actually believes Malik has made any kind of positive impact to Pakistan’s security situation? More importantly, how could Sindh Governor, Dr Ishratul Ebad assess that “Malik’s efforts against terrorism and valuable help in maintaining law and order in Karachi are known to everyone.” If that’s true, then could it be possible that we are all simply oblivious to the great man Dr. Malik just might be under that cloak of failures that he wears? REFERENCES: ‘Governor responsible for failing universities’ By Faiza Ilyas | From the Newspaper October 13, 2011 http://www.dawn.com/2011/10/13/governor-responsible-for-failing-universities.html That’s Dr. Malik for you BY DAWN.COM ON 10 13TH, 2011 http://forum.dawn.com/2011/10/13/that%E2%80%99s-dr-malik-for-you/

Geomentary - Mere Azeez Hum Watano. Story of the 3rd Martial Law - 21 Oct 2011 Part 1

http://youtu.be/wuF3UJJEkbY

When General Zia was awarded an LLD, there were no dissenting voices other than those of a few Punjab University professors. Most of them were sacked, and many of them were removed from department chairmanship - Ninety-nine percent of Pakistani (electronic and print) media (Urdu as well as English) is right wing, and 100 percent of it has run amok in fury over an honorary doctorate awarded to Interior Minister Rehman Malik by Governor Sindh Ishratul Ebad Khan. A newspaper editorialised its anger thus: “The huge smile on ‘Dr’ Malik’s face as he accepted his degree reaffirms his own sense of surety that all that he is doing is right.” A columnist wrote in sarcasm: “Rehman Malik has joined the ranks of 5,300 PhD scholars in Pakistan.” The Islami Jamiat-i-Talaba (IJT) protested in front of the Karachi Press Club; its leader thundered: “Awarding honorary degrees on political basis should be banned!” Since I came to know about him in 2007, I do not remember a single moment when I liked Rehman Malik. Thus, this piece is not a defence of the degree awarded to him. I wish to read between the lines of what and why the media has been railing against who and why. I wish also to put on record that an honorary degree was awarded to a person far, far worse than Rehman Malik. First, a correction: someone holding an honorary doctorate does not become a doctor in the academic sense. Such a person cannot write ‘Dr’ in front of his/her name. If Abdul Sattar Edhi is given an honorary doctorate, he will not be considered a scholar, but, in his case, a social worker. Also, these frothing-at-the-mouth babblers have not identified whether Malik’s award is a PhD or a Doctor of Laws (LLD). What is this ‘sense of surety’? Only the editorial writer in question can answer. I have looked up dictionaries and usage manuals these past few days, and none of them enlightened me on this. Now a word about the IJT’s shock and objection over the award. It was this very IJT and its parent Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) that gave an LLD to General Ziaul Haq. Yes, this is what happened in 1978 after he had deposed Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s government and declared himself Pakistan’s Chief Martial Law Administrator (CMLA). Rehman Malik has been awarded the degree for, as the citation goes, his “matchless services to the country in the war on terror and particularly in restoring peace to citizens of Karachi”. This may be right or wrong, but Rehman Malik has not committed any treason. Will the IJT or the JI clarify on what basis they awarded an LLD to Ziaul Haq whose greatest act till 1978 was treason, the worst crime in Pakistan? The person who physically conferred the degree on General-CMLA Ziaul Haq was no other than Liaqat Baloch. At that time, he was president of the Punjab University Students Union. Now he is a deputy amir of the JI. He can explain the raison d’être of the conferment better than anyone else. When General Zia was awarded an LLD, there were no dissenting voices other than those of a few Punjab University professors. Most of them were sacked, and many of them were removed from department chairmanship. One of them was Professor Razi Abedi, a close friend of mine. He has recently told me that the police and intelligence agencies swooped down on pro-democracy/anti-Zia professors with a level of violence that is normally reserved only for murderers and drug-traffickers. In their ignoble task, the police and intelligence agencies were helped by student leaders and some Punjab University professors. I do support the IJT in its proposal that honorary degrees must not be awarded on political basis. Now that General Zia is gone, the Punjab University can revoke the LLD awarded to him. Shahbaz Sharif has complete control of the Punjab University. He can cast the first stone. This, I hope, will lead to the revoking of Malik’s award too. The real agenda behind the sound and fury over Malik’s degree is not the award per se. My understanding is that Malik is not the target at all. The real target is President Zardari, hated by the media, political parties, the ISI and the army (refer to WikiLeaks to learn about General Kayani’s love for Zardari). The formula is: whatever and whoever has Zardari’s support must be taken on. As a sidekick, the MQM can also be subjected to criticism because it is a Zardari ally. Thus, two birds can be killed with one stone. Reference: COMMENT: Did someone say “Dr General-CMLA Ziaul Haq” too? —Abbas Zaidi Wednesday, October 19, 2011 The writer is the author of Two and a Half Words and Other Stories. He can be reached at hellozaidi@gmail.com http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2011%5C10%5C19%5Cstory_19-10-2011_pg3_6

Geomentary - Mere Azeez Hum Watano. Story of the 3rd Martial Law - 21 Oct 2011 Part 2

http://youtu.be/G8QFtMSmFqU

DESPITE the many shortcomings of their alma mater, Karachi University graduates have been a proud bunch, having received a decent education and that too for next to nothing. Many of us students and our teachers braved perils everyday in just going to campus to receive/impart education as our counterparts do around the world routinely in safety. The word ‘peril’ isn’t being used loosely. One isn’t talking about the rickety ‘point’ buses which ‘flew’ us daily to the alma mater and back. In the years, I was reading economics at the Karachi University some half a dozen students were shot dead and dozens were injured in incidents involving student violence. Given how intense the automatic gunfire often was, it’s a miracle there weren’t more, many more, victims. Even teachers were not spared and some were assaulted, though it wasn’t as if they were targeted indiscriminately. Only those teachers were harassed and/or assaulted whose ideological leaning was to the left, something that was beyond forgiveness, reprieve as far as Zia and his surrogates in the Islami Jamiat-i-Talaba (IJT) were concerned. This nexus between IJT and the Zia regime was so well-established that after a professor was beaten black and blue by the famed Thunder Squad of the right-wing student group, the military governor of Sindh, the chancellor, then dismissed him from service citing the most dubious of reasons. In this repressive environment, the IJT seemed to gleefully act as the military ruler’s ‘B’ team. Its armed squads seemed to operate with impunity as long as they delivered on their part of the deal. Gen Zia wanted ‘peace’ on the university campuses and looked the other way as his ideological allies used all manner of brutal tactics to suppress ‘progressive’ dissent at the institutions. Ask Senator Hasil Bizenjo who was shot in the foot while taking part in an anti-Zia protest. REFERENCE: Dislodged from a proud perchAbbas Nasir October 15, 2011 The writer is a former editor of Dawn. http://www.dawn.com/2011/10/15/dislodged-from-a-proud-perch.html

Geomentary - Mere Azeez Hum Watano. Story of the 3rd Martial Law - 21 Oct 2011 Part 3

http://youtu.be/4vL09ygyjXQ

If you look at the official patronage extended like a protective umbrella to the IJT not just on campus but throughout Karachi, it is surprising, a tribute to their tenacity, that anyone with a progressive bent of mind survived at all. Against such a backdrop, who would be surprised if the university administration including the vice-chancellor tilted towards the IJT? It may be unfair to say that Dr Masum Ali Tirmizi, the VC in our days, was ideologically allied to the IJT. Perhaps he was meek and found it easy to succumb to most of the IJT’s demands as the student wing of the Jamaat-i-Islami was aggressive and enjoyed the backing of the country’s military ruler who had recently overthrown and executed the elected prime minister. The point is he may have often favoured the right in his decisions and earned the ire of all progressive forces in the university but at no point did anyone mistake him for ‘Saif Bhai’ (Saifuddin), the bespectacled and pimpled IJT nazim (boss) then. This was a time, when the Zia regime, the Jamaat and its student wing ruled the roost. Following bloodletting between the Khalqi and Parchami wings of the governing (PDPA) People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan, the Red Army had marched into Pakistan’s western neighbour. Hard-line Reagan had replaced the relatively soft Carter in the White House. The United States and its western allies embraced Zia and all Islamist forces in the country. The West saw them as vital pawns on the chessboard, as it took on the Soviets through these proxies. If the stranglehold of the right was loosened it was only for a day at a time as a handful of militant anti-Jamiat student activists offered no more than passing resistance. Despite killing two IJT activists on campus, they couldn’t dent the IJT’s near-permanent might and muscle. REFERENCE: Dislodged from a proud perchAbbas Nasir October 15, 2011 The writer is a former editor of Dawn. http://www.dawn.com/2011/10/15/dislodged-from-a-proud-perch.html

Geomentary - Mere Azeez Hum Watano. Story of the 3rd Martial Law - 21 Oct 2011 Part 4

http://youtu.be/b5KYkcI42vM

But even through this period, and yes I belabour the point, no matter how much he was castigated by the ‘progressives’, the vice-chancellor managed to more or less keep the dignity of his office intact. The recent bizarre decision of the University of Karachi to award an honorary doctorate to the minister of interior Rehman Malik for his services towards ‘peace’ in Karachi has left me bewildered. Mr Malik has been quoted in last Thursday’s Dawn as telling the cabinet he should be tasked with collecting the outstanding power bills as he had already succeeded in restoring peace to Karachi and Balochistan. Peace in Balochistan? Need one say more? And isn’t it public knowledge whatever modicum of peace has been brought to the metropolis is due to the suo moto action taken by the Supreme Court of Pakistan? Isn’t it true the main hero of the piece is one Ijaz Chaudhry, a major-general? Yes he was the director-general of the Rangers removed from office earlier this summer by the apex court after Sarfaraz Shah’s extra-judicial killing by the Rangers’ personnel was captured on camera in Karachi. His quiet return to office dramatically ended the spike in violence and the target killings in Karachi and he has been rewarded with a promotion to lieutenant-general. One eligible to command a corps would hardly feel the need for doctoral robes. There can be no doubt Rehman Malik earned the gratitude of the MQM when the party was feeling vulnerable and uneasy in trying to figure out the meaning of Zulfikar Mirza’s outburst especially at a time when it wasn’t even clear whose tune the former Sindh minister may have been marching to. Dr Pirzada Qasim, the current holder of the venerable office of the vice-chancellor, may have merely acquiesced in this award to a controversial sitting minister, making dubious claims about the restoration of peace. But how will he defend himself if his critics charge him with having acted like an MQM sympathiser. And don’t ask me if I am still proud of being a KU graduate. REFERENCE: Dislodged from a proud perchAbbas Nasir October 15, 2011 The writer is a former editor of Dawn. http://www.dawn.com/2011/10/15/dislodged-from-a-proud-perch.html

Syed Haider Farooq Maududi Exposing Jamaat-e-Islami - 1 (28 May 2011)

Syed Haider Farooq Maududi Exposing Jamaat-e-Islami - 2 (28 May 2011)

Syed Haider Farooq Maududi Exposing Jamaat-e-Islami - 3 (28 May 2011)

Syed Haider Farooq Maududi Exposing Jamaat-e-Islami - 4 (28 May 2011)

Senator Khursheed Ahmed Openly Supported Bhutto's Hanging by the hands of General Zia

URL: http://youtu.be/2iPFulZOplQ

With brainwashing on the one hand and erosion of academic freedom on the other, the campuses (once temples of learning and enlightenment) have been turned into centres of rowdyism and repositories of deadly weapon. Students belonging to various schools of religious thought, regional and ethnic groups, particularly the Islami Jamiat-e-Tulba (the student wing of Jamat-e-Islami) , have played havoc with educational institutions. Professors were another target of the victimization carried out in this period. Members of the IJT launched a concerted campaign against professors known for their liberal views. In Punjab University, particularly, many professors were forced to resign, others were sacked. The situation was no different in the Quaid-e-Azam University, Islamabad, which had in the 70s attracted many brilliant Pakistanis who were teaching abroad. As the harassment became unbearable, most of these professors went back. To what extent fundamentalists blocked scientific knowledge can be assessed by one incident at the Karachi University, where a zoology lecturer was stopped from teaching Darwin’s Theory of Evolution. Similar incidents occurred frequently in the philosophy and the economics department. The situation has worsened wit the passage of time. During that period, a policy of appeasement towards the IJT made matter worse. Guns boomed at the Karachi University Campus for the first time in 1979 when, according to Imran Shirvanee, Raja Javed, a supporter of IJT, used a sten gun ‘to tackle the opposition.’ When the pen and free expression are throttled, the only means open to tackle opposition is a firearm. At that time, the IJT was the ruling party in Karachi University politics with Hussain Haqqani, Raja Javed was his close aide. Haqqani is a man of many roles. The former Far Eastern Economic Review correspondent was the media advisor to Punjab Chief Minister Nawaz Sharif when Benazir Bhutto was at the centre {1988-1990}. He switched to serve caretaker Prime Minister Ghulam Mustafa Jatoi in 1990, and then switched back again to serve Sharif when he was elected Prime Minister. In 1992, he was sent to Sri Lanka as Pakistan’s High Commissioner. On the eve of Nawaz Sharif’s dismissal on 18 April 1993, he jumped the sinking ship and joined President Ghulam Ishaq Khan bandwagon. Immediately, he was rewarded by being made a special assistant to the caretaker Prime Minister Mir Balakh Sher Mazari with the rank of Minister of State. Asked by BBC if he now deserved a mention in the Guinness Book of Records for switching loyalties so often, his reply was classic: I was always with the President.’”REFERENCE: The Web of Censorship by Late. Zamir Niazi published by Oxford University Press.

Media is Under Siege in Pakistan (Khamosh Raho)!

“Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.” – Albert Einstein - “Everything you see or hear or experience in any way at all is specific to you. You create a universe by perceiving it, so everything in the universe you perceive is specific to you.” – Douglas Adams - Take a minute to scan your surroundings. Are you in a familiar place or somewhere new? Stop reading this, and just look around you. Pick out an object, maybe something you hadn’t noticed before, and focus your attention on it. If you really focus, it’ll get brighter and more “real” than it was when it was just an unnoticed piece of the background noise of your life. Now, try to view your surroundings from the point of the object. Some people can do this with no effort, and for others, it takes some concentration. Depending on how adept you are at focusing your concentration, you may notice a slight shift in your perception – a weird jump in realty, where you are suddenly viewing the world from a different perspective. Did it work? Whether you noticed anything or not, your perception did change, albeit for an instant. It’s important to be conscious of your perception, because if you’re not, someone else will create it for you.REFERENCE: Your Perception IS Your Reality October 31 by Tony D. Clark http://www.lifehack.org/articles/lifehack/your-perception-is-your-reality.html 

Zamir Niazi’s second major book was the Press Under Siege (1992). This book dealt with the violent post-Zia years up to 1991. These were the years of the rise of the MQM in Karachi and hardly anyone dared to report, much less criticize, the violence of the MQM against the press. Zamir Niazi, despite his support of the ordinary people of Karachi and some of the issues the MQM dwelt upon, did not hesitate to write against the high handed tactics of the MQM workers just as he reported such events elsewhere. The book ended with a moving appeal to the civil society to value the press. He wrote:

... we all have to stand up today against the twin menace of state restrictions and street barbarism. Perhaps it will be our last chance to do so. Perhaps tomorrow it will be too late. Perhaps tomorrow will never come. What ominous words but how moving—and how true! REFERENCE: Farewell to Zamir Niazi Dr. Tariq Rahman http://www.tariqrahman.net/newspaper/Farewell%20to%20Zamir%20Niazi.htm

Why Nusrat Javed has been sacked from Aaj TV? - 1 (Bolta Pakistan 9 Sept 2011)

URL: http://youtu.be/473jJztC42M

DUBAI: MQM leader Altaf Hussain on Friday night twice threatened, although in very guarded and reluctant tone to unleash his followers if his party was pushed to the wall. What he meant by this was not explained and left to the imagination of listeners and viewers. But while threatening to let loose his forces against unknown and unnamed enemies, Altaf Hussain also twice offered full support and cooperation specifically to the Pakistan Army and the ISI to counter the various conspiracies that he thought were being hatched against Pakistan. At one stage he said if army and ISI joined hands with him: “We could even defeat the super powers.” This threat from the UK and US was always in the back of his mind as his continuous effort was to arouse and emotionally excite and activate his followers by referring to his death or murder, or disappearance from the scene. Why suddenly the MQM leader has become so worried about his life has not been explained and his three hours of live TV also did not throw much light on this specific aspect but analysts believe what could be bothering him may be the fast forwarded investigation into the murder of Dr Imran Farooq and the reported arrests of two suspected killers who have allegedly confessed their links to the MQM and may lead the Scotland Yard to the MQM head office in London, whether on the Edgeware Road or Colindale address. The drama and the casual, informal address to his workers, which was deliberately couched as a news conference to get maximum TV time, which it got, hardly addressed any core issue confronting Karachi and Pakistan as on most of these main questions Altaf Hussain either remained evasive or did not respond at all. He did not answer any charge raised by PPP leader Zulfikar Mirza saying he would not respond to that mad man, he did not touch the issue of his highly controversial remarks about breaking up Pakistan in front of Pir Mazhar and Mr Mirza, he ignored the Tony Blair letter totally, he did not deny that his party indulged in target killings, he refused to accept that not just his party but others also had a stake in peace of Karachi. But the most pathetic part of his address was his explanation and defence of the May 12 events which left his viewers and the nation reeling as May 12 is so fresh in everyone’s mind and what MQM did that day could never be denied in the manner Altaf Hussain did. His explanations only lowered his credibility. There is no question that MQM was totally incharge of all Home Ministry on May 12 and the MQM leader Wasim Akhtar was seen in numerous TV interviews claiming to be incharge and controlling the situation. The way containers, which were under control of another MQM minister Babar Ghauri, were used on that day cannot be brushed away by such belated and unbelievable explanations. How the Sindh High Court was besieged is for lawyers to elaborate. On May 12, I was also in Karachi and heading an important TV channel and I know personally how MQM tried its best to plant tailor-made video clips in our transmissions to prove that PPP and other parties were involved in the killings that were going on in Karachi. On that day I tried to present a balanced picture of the day’s events as head of the TV channel and when I showed a zoomed-out full view of the public meeting of Mr Altaf Hussain, within 3 minutes London started calling my channel bosses and shouted abuses because the wide empty spaces in the crowds had been exposed by the TV shots. It was not surprising then that within two days the Mohajir Rabita Council, a MQM dominated body of Karachi, issued a hit list of 10 journalists who they claimed were “haters” of MQM and my name was also included in that list. Altaf Hussain conveniently left the doors of an alliance and cooperation with PPP open in his press conference and repeatedly called President Asif Ali Zardari his brother while he made a preposterous claim that US had paid millions of dollars to Asfandyar Wali Khan of ANP and Nawaz Sharif’s party had big arsenals of weapons. He never presented any evidence to substantiate both these charges. Twice he said that MQM was prepared to join hands with PPP “for peace in Karachi” but he did not go into details of the long-winded negotiations, which are on-going between their teams in Karachi, Islamabad and London. The obvious message was that MQM wanted quickly to get back into power as the heat outside the power corridors was getting too hot to handle. The MQM leader’s long and comical thesis that Pakistan was under attack and threatened with a break up by quoting an odd book, some research writers and a couple of newspaper reports was probably the weakest part of his harangue as he could not convince anyone who even has a modicum of intelligence and knowledge about these theories. Such articles have been published ever since the country was created and Altaf Hussain needed much more solid evidence if he went public with this charge. Finally he appeared to be a man in the middle of a serious crisis, threatened by the acts of omission and commission that were catching up with his party, and may be personally against him, and the three-hour press outing was an attempt to justify whatever may be coming towards him as a runaway train, without brakes. REFERENCE: Altaf, a man in the eye of multiple storms Shaheen Sehbai Saturday, September 10, 2011 http://www.thenews.com.pk/TodaysPrintDetail.aspx?ID=8684&Cat=13 

Why Nusrat Javed has been sacked from Aaj TV? - 2  (Capital Talk Special - 9th Sept 2011)  

URL: http://youtu.be/VYAy1-9pfJc

http://e.jang.com.pk/09-10-2011/Karachi/page1.asp#;
http://e.jang.com.pk/09-10-2011/Karachi/pic.asp?picname=1039.gif

May 30 (Reuters) - Three Pakistani journalists working for foreign news organisations in Karachi found bullets placed in their cars in what a local media body described on Wednesday as an attempt to intimidate the press into silence. "It is very threatening. This is a serious issue. It is an attempt to gag the press, but we will not compromise on our objectivity," Mazhar Abbas, secretary-general of the Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists, told Reuters. Karachi has been tense since May 12, when nearly 40 people were killed in clashes between rival political groups, that disrupted a visit to the city by suspended chief justice Iftikhar Chaudhry. Chaudhry is at the centre of a crisis that has gripped Pakistan since President Pervez Musharraf tried to sack him in March. Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), the party controlling Pakistan's biggest city and an ally of Musharraf's and member of the coalition, has denied accusations that its workers played a big part in the Karachi bloodshed. Last week, a shadowy group associated with MQM issued a list of a dozen journalists, terming them "enemies". Two of the journalists who received bullets were on the list. An envelope containing a bullet was taped to the windscreens of vehicles belonging two journalists, while a similar envelope was thrown inside the car of a third late on Tuesday. Karachi police chief Azhar Farooqi said investigations were underway. Pakistani media has flourished and many new television channels have opened up since Musharraf seized power in a bloodless military coup 7-½ years ago. However, media groups say there has been a growing pressure on the media since the judicial crisis erupted. Television stations have been attacked and journalists have been threatened for covering countrywide protests by lawyers and opposition groups. "Threats against journalists are mounting in Pakistan and the government must take immediate steps not only to protect journalists, but to actively seek out and bring to justice those who would harm them," Bob Dietz, the Committee to Protect Journalists Asia programme coordinator, said in a statement last week. MQM denounced threats to journalists, though the list was circulated by Mohajir Rabita Council, a group linked to the party representing Urdu speakers who migrated to Pakistan from northern India during partition of the Sub-Continent 60 years ago. "These threats are aimed at creating a rift between journalists and MQM," Farooq Sattar, parliamentary leader of MQM, told Reuters. REFERENCE: Pakistani journalists receive bullets threat Wed May 30, 2007 4:23am EDT http://www.reuters.com/article/2007/05/30/idUSISL186008 PAKISTAN: IFJ enraged by MRC's threat to journalists Council releases a list of journalists deemed subversive to society Dawn Friday, May 25, 2007 http://www.international.ucla.edu/article.asp?parentid=70724

(PPF/IFEX) - The Mohajir Rabita Council (MRC), an ethnic political group in Pakistan's southern province of Sindh, has issued a list of twelve Pakistani journalists it denounced as being "chauvinists", and criticized their alleged role in the violence during protest rallies held in Karachi on 12 May 2007, during the visit of the suspended Supreme Court Chief Justice Iftekhar Mohammed Chaudhary to the city. The MRC is considered to be closely associated with the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), the party allied to President Pervez Musharraf and the main coalition partner in the Sindh provincial government. In a press statement, the vice-president and secretary general of MRC said the organization had established a special unit to inform the new generation about their "enemies". The statement also condemned certain television programmes and accused them of "playing a dangerous game to destroy Pakistan by igniting linguistic prejudices." The names of the journalists on the list include: Zafar Abbas of the daily newspaper "Dawn"; Azhar Abbas of Dawn TV; Mazhar Abbas of AFP; Ayaz Amir, a "Dawn" columnist; Sajjad Mir of TV One; Irfan Siddiqui of daily "Nawa-e-Waqt"; Dr. Shahid Masood of Geo TV; Aneeq Ahmed of ARY TV; Asfar Imam of Aaj TV; Zahid Hussain of Geo TV; Shaheen Sehbai of ARY TV; and Zarar Khan of AP. Also included in the list was Iqbal Haider, secretary general of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP). A press release issued by the Karachi Union of Journalists (KUJ) expressed concern at the MRC statement, which it described as a serious threat to free media and an attempt to gag the press. The KUJ said the MRC and MQM will be held responsible if any harm came to the journalists whose names have been mentioned in the MRC statement. KUJ demanded the government take serious notice of what it termed as an attack on the media. A press release issued by Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists (PFUJ) expressed great concern at the "issuance of such a hit list", which it deems a direct threat to media independence. REFERENCE: Alert Ethnic political group allied with ruling party releases journalist "hit list" 24 May 2007 Source: Pakistan Press Foundation Press Centre Shahrah Kamal Ataturk Karachi 74200 Pakistan ppf (@) pakistanpressfoundation.org Phone: +92 21 263 3215 Fax: +92 21 221 7069 http://www.ifex.org/pakistan/2007/05/24/ethnic_political_group_allied_with/ PAKISTAN: IFJ enraged by MRC's threat to journalists Council releases a list of journalists deemed subversive to society Dawn Friday, May 25, 2007 http://www.international.ucla.edu/article.asp?parentid=70724

ISLAMABAD — A letter likely to point to the murderers of former Sindh governor Hakim Said has been reportedly recovered by Scotland Yard from the house of slain Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) leader Dr Imran Farooq. Earlier, several MQM workers, allegedly involved in Said’s murder on October 17, 1998, were arrested and subsequently sentenced to death by an anti-terrorism court. However, on May 31, 2001, the Sindh High Court acquitted all the accused in the case for failure of the prosecution to produce terrified witnesses. The letter, said to have been written to Dr Farooq by one Javed Turk, is part of a number of documents impounded from the MQM leader’s house as part of the ongoing investigation into his murder. Said, who established Hamdard Foundation in 1948, was a well known scholar and philanthropist. After his murder, the then prime minister Nawaz Sharif dismissed the province government of his party and imposed governor’s rule in the province. Translated documents, recovered from Farooq’s house, are helping Scotland Yard to zero-in on suspects in Farooq’s murder case, sources said. Scotland Yard has recently questioned an activist of the MQM. Former Sindh senior minister Dr Zulfiqar Mirza has accused the MQM of assassinating Hakim Said and Imran Farooq saying the orders came from MQM chief Altaf Hussain. The MQM has rejected the allegation as absurd. Knowledgeable sources have claimed that the MQM UK chapter has taken strong exception to the direction the murder case probe has taken and has even reportedly protested to the UK government. Altaf Hussain last month accused Pakistan’s intelligence agencies of feeding poisonous material to London police against him and his party. Altaf has been out of public view for past about a fortnight amid reports that London police had stopped him from escaping to South Africa citing security reasons. The British High Commissioner in Islamabad has, however, refuted reports that Altaf is under house arrest. In a belated clarification, the MQM said he has been unwell for past two weeks and has recovered fast. REFERENCE: UK police stumble on clues to Hakim Said’s murder 5 September 2011 http://www.khaleejtimes.com/displayarticle.asp?xfile=data/international/2011/September/international_September189.xml&section=international&col=

Zamir in Urdu means "conscience", and since his hook Press in Chains (Karachi Press Club, 1986) came out, Zamir Niazi has been the voice of conscience of the Pakistani press, its society and government. Press in Chains is a detailed history of government control and coercion of the press in Pakistan since 1947, and is distinguished by its thorough documentation—no incident was cited without attribution, a feature which is lacking in much of the history written in Pakistan. The book became an immediate bestseller and went into many reprints, both in Pakistan and India. Niazi followed his pioneering work with two more: The Press Under Siege, a look at the violence against and intimidation of the press from non-government sources, and The Web of Censorship, which exposed the culture of self-censorship in the press. Now 67 and stricken with cancer, Niazi remains very much a fighter for press freedom, and is preparing his fourth book. Himal caught up with the author in his Karachi home, against the backdrop of the very public row between the Sharif government and the Jang Group of Newspapers. (See Commentary page 8)

• How do you view this ongoing tussle between the government and the Jang Group?

Jang has always been a loyal follower of each and every government. It has been a very docile institution. Us circulation in various cities is more than the combined circulation of all the other papers. From the beginning, its founder and father, Mir Khalilur Rehman, who single-handedly made the paper into an institution and became an institution himself in his own life, knew how to run a business. Some 15 years back, in an interview, the Far Eastern Economic Review had asked him what his paper's policy was. He replied, our policy is to have no policy. He meant: We are with everybody, we don't believe in criticism or an adversarial role, we just do what the government and the people want. After his death, his very able sons have faithfully carried out this policy.

The present battle between Jang and the government has been going on for the last seven months. At first we thought it was a superficial fight. But then I read about the Jang Group Editor-in-Chief Mir Shakils press conference [in which he released tapes of his conversations with government officials including Senator Saifur Rehman] and I was shaken. The senator asks Mir Sahib to dismiss journalists, not to write anything against the prime minister, to support the Shariah Bill. On BBC, the senator admitted this in so many words and criticised Mir Shakil for taping the conversations. I think he [Shakil] did the best thing. This was the only proof. He was pushed to the wall. What else could he have done?

• So you think that whatever Mir Shakil did was justified?

Yes! He did great service not only to Jang but to the entire profession. Today the government is pressurizing Jang and if Jang surrenders, tomorrow they will pressurise Dawn. Then Nawai Waqt. We have to fight this thing. This is not a fight between Shakil and Saifur Rehman. This is a fight between the press and the government.

• There have always been government attempts to influence or control the press. How do you compare past attempts with this one?

This time the attempts have become ruthless. They've forgotten all norms of decency. The government wants to turn Jang into a Pravda.

• The South Asian press has frequently been accused of adventurism. Governments have blamed the press for going beyond the call of constructive criticism. There are such allegations against Jang now.

Where will you draw the line? Who is going to draw the line? I've been in the profession since 1954. Each government says the same, "We welcome constructive criticism." Who decides what is constructive criticism?

I'll give you examples of limits in different periods. After the imposition of the first martial law, during Ayub Khan's period, criticism of the defence forces was out. In the same period, after [Zulfikar Ali] Bhutto became the foreign minister, you couldn't write anything on foreign affairs. In Bhutto's era, the limits changed—if somebody was Bhutto's friend, you couldn't criticise him. In Zia-ul Haq's period it was something more. Because of the long period of dictatorship, every small guy in his institution became a dictator. Then you couldn't even write about the railways or the PIA or the civic bodies such as the Karachi Municipal Corporation or the Karachi Development Authority. So who is going to define the limits?

• How do you compare press freedoms in Pakistan with that in other countries of the region?

In the entire SAARC region, the press is free in India only. Sri Lanka and Bangladesh are the same as Pakistan. In India, except for the 17 months' Emergency during Indira Gandhi's rule, the press remained free. But our press has remained in chains for 40 years. Despite that, Kuldip Nayyar told me that the Pakistani press is bolder than India's, because we people have learnt the art of saying things between the lines.

For example, April 4th, the day Bhutto was hanged in 1979, is also the day that Martin Luther Kingjr was assassinated in 1968. On the first anniversary of Mr Bhuttos execution [because we could not write on him], we wrote articles paying tributes to Martin Luther King. An influential member of the Ministry of Information told me, "We know that you are telling people, today is the death anniversary of Bhutto, we know it."

Our press has been ruthlessly suppressed in our short history of 50 years. And look at what is happening even now. This is a so-called democratic era and the man [Nawaz Sharif] who claims every week to have a heavy mandate', look at what he is doing to the press.

• Did this tradition of muzzling the press start very early on in Pakistan's history?

I have mentioned it in detail in my first book. Three days before Pakistan came into being, on August 11th 1947, Jinnah made his first speech. In that speech he explained the secular nature of the polity of the new nation. Some people, with the backing of some bureaucrats, tried to censor that portion of the speech. So this thing started right from the word go.

• The press attempts to evade governmental influence by seeking revenue from the private sector. If it faces censorship from that sector as well, what can a newspaper do to survive?

It's a walk on a razor's edge. There are journalists who are trying to fight both forms of censorship. But one must remember that for a good cause you will always find only a minority. The redeeming thing, however, is that this minority ultimately triumphs. It takes time but it does happen. One should always dream. Dreams should not die. Your dreams are your identity. So many Utopias have proved to be nightmares. But there is still a Utopia.

• You have written about government attempts to curb press freedom and of other forces within society which intimidate the press. Which of these is more sinister?

Some six months back I thought the darkest period for the press was Zia's martial law, and that perhaps even more dangerous was when he lifted censorship and we fell into selfcensorship. That destroyed our faculties. But seeing what has been happening over the last week or so, I am in much pain. I used to say that now the worst is over. But I think I was wrong. Something terrible is happening. We have to stand united. Every citizen must stand up for their rights. It is our right to know. You, can't take that away. REFERENCE: Interview Zamir Niazi March 1998 By Hasan Zaidi http://www.himalmag.com/component/content/article/2419-Zamir-Niazi.html

Anarchist Pakistani News Anchors (Read Event Reporters) & Lifafa Journalism.

Yesterday (4 June 2011) Mr. Haroon ur Rasheed (Jang Group) while opining on Syed Saleem Shahzad Murder in a TV Show Policy Matter with Ms. Nasim Zehra, said “Pakistani Society is being brutalized” whereas he should have blame himself and his Spiritual Partners like Irfan Siddiqui (Jang Group), Ansar Abbasi (Jang Group/Geo TV), Salim Bokhari (Nation/Nawa-e-Qaqt), Meher Bokhari (Dunya TV), Asma Chaudhry (Dunya TV), Kashif Abbasi (ARY NEWS), Asma Shirazi (Samaa TV), Sajjad Mir (News One/TV ONE and Former Artist of PTV) and last but not the least Syed Talat Hussain (PTV, ARY, AAJ, DAWN NEWS). Minus Talat Hussain everybody took part in the Cold Blooded Murder of Former Punjab Governor, Late. Salman Taseer. One mustn't forget the Ugliest Role played by Irfan Siddiqui, Haroon ur Rasheed, Ansar Abbasi and Jang Group/GEO TV as well in Salman Taseer's Brutal Murder in connivance with the Lawyers Community/Judges and Rampant Mullahs of Pakistan. Hamid Mir talking on Policy Matters (4th June 2011) against suspected killers of Syed Saleem Shahzad. He promised that if no fair investigation will be conducted than he will announce the names of Saleem Shahzad.s’ suspected killers. Differentiate between Touts and Journalists.

Watch Policy Matters -- 4th June 2011


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gji5DB4KdzU

The agencies have always had personnel on their payrolls operating as reporters, anchors, and ‘analysts’ ever since the Ayub Khan dictatorship in the 1960s. Respected journalist and author, late Zamir Niazi, in his book, The Web of Censorship, suggests that the agencies recruited a number of ‘journalists’ during the Ayub dictatorship, specifically to check leftist sentiments that were all the rage among journalists at the time. Then during the Z.A. Bhutto regime, Niazi hints that the populist government and the conservative ‘establishment’ fought a battle of ideas through paid journalists. But the phenomenon of agency-backed journalists upholding the military establishment’s agenda and ideology in the press really came to the fore during the Ziaul Haq dictatorship in the 1980s. As left-leaning journalists were forced to exit newspapers during the Zia dictatorship, the corridors of these newspaper offices were suddenly stormed by large groups of pro-establishment personnel, mainly consisting of anti-Bhutto journalists and pro-Jamaat-i-Islami (JI) men. With the role of the ISI and other intelligence agencies expanding due to Pakistan’s direct involvement in the so-called ‘anti-Soviet Afghan jihad,’ many of these journalists were brought under the wings of various agencies, triggering a trend that still disfigures prominent sections of mainstream Pakistani media. What’s more, between early and late 1980s, the agencies were also able to plant men in the administration and finance departments of various mainstream media groups. REFERENCE: Are Intelligence Agencies Using Media As Puppets? http://pakistanmediawatch.com/2010/11/13/are-intelligence-agencies-using-media-as-puppets/

During 2010 I watched a show on a television channel wherein the journalists from 5 media organizations were discussing this matter. It was interesting to see that they were all saying that a cautious attitude is required and one should not jump to conclusions in haste. I wonder if any tape like this was related to any politician about his/her wrong doing how hastily they would have drawn conclusions. Everyday, we watch them accusing government of wrong doings but they seldom wait to get their facts right. Before the 18th amendment was passed most of the anchors and columnists were convinced that Zardari won’t let it happen. To their dismay it happened. I believe that most of them (media personnel) are supporting the army operation because their mentors in agencies wanted them to build the public opinion in their favor. And I’m afraid that change of mind by the military leadership will trigger them to convince their audiences that how pious they are, and that their purpose is to enforce sharia. The establishment has the real power in this country. And who else can dare to record this audio? May be Mir`s mentors wanted to teach him some lesson. It is interesting to see how struggle between different groups within agencies is revealing the truth.

Live With Talat - Part 1 (20th May 2010)


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OV6GLVyjqjo

Live With Talat - Part 2 (20th May 2010)


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IOFea8qOmSs

Live With Talat - Part 3 (20th May 2010)


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_NVxKRsQXQ

Live With Talat - Part 4 (20th May 2010)


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0J6SB4ppNvA

Note Kashif Abbasi (ARY NEWS) in Live with Talat:) and you may find that Kashif was “sympathetic” towards militant , also note that Ansar Abbasi has almost fixed the responsibility on Hamid Mir. What a bunch of Selfish down to core “Mob” .

Jang Group & Ansar Abbasi "ILLEGALLY" Taped the Telephones of Judges & Citizens.

Credible reports indicated that the authorities routinely use wiretaps and intercepted and opened mail. The Supreme Court directed the Government to seek its permission before carrying out wiretapping or eavesdropping operations; however, the judiciary's directive has been ignored widely. No action was taken during the year in the 1996 case of 12 government agencies accused of tapping and monitoring citizens' phone calls and no additional action was expected. REFERENCE: PAKISTAN Country Reports on Human Rights Practices Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor 2002 http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2002/18314.htm

In 1997 the Supreme Court directed the federal Government to seek the Court's permission before carrying out any future wiretapping or eavesdropping operations. Nonetheless, that same year, a lawyer for a former director of the Intelligence Bureau, charged with illegal wiretapping during Benazir Bhutto's second term in office, presented the Supreme Court with a list of 12 government agencies that still tapped and monitored telephone calls of citizens. The case is pending in the Supreme Court. A press story in October 1998 quoted anonymous cabinet ministers who complained of wiretapping of their telephones by the Intelligence Bureau. EFERENCE: Country Reports on Human Rights Practices Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor 1999 http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/1999/441.htm

Pakistan's Constitution of 1973 says (Jang Group/GEO TV/The News International flagrantly violate the following article)

"QUOTE"

14. Inviolability of dignity of man, etc.


(1) The dignity of man and, subject to law, the privacy of home, shall be inviolable. REFERENCE: PART II Fundamental Rights and Principles of Policy http://www.pakistani.org/pakistan/constitution/part2.ch1.html The Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan http://www.pakistani.org/pakistan/constitution/


"UNQUOTE"

WHEN governments in this country are dismissed, petitions are filed in the Supreme Court, thousands of words are written by lawyers, and then thousands of words are written by judges delivering judgments. To save labour, time and money, and to make it quicker and simpler for judges, lawyers, and laymen alike to grasp the essentials of these repetitious petitions and judgments in which it is only the names of the petitioners and respondents which change, could they not be standardized? For instance, for corruption, the petitioners could simply write: "Refer to Form Krupt K1", which the respondents could answer with : "Denied - in terms of Form Krupt K2"; for telephone tapping, "Refer to Form Teltap TT 1" and "Denied - in terms of Form Teltap TT 2 "would serve the purpose, and so on and so forth. A one-page judgment could then be written by the judges simply by ordering the Registrar to 'Print out Snooze 1'. May I recommend that my friend Khalid Anwer, master of English and legalize prose, of petitioning and responding, compile a book of suitable forms. How effectively he attacked telephone tapping as the respondent's counsel in the matter of Benazir's petitition challenging her second dismissal (CP 59/96). Worth a read in his written statement is "Sixth Ground of the Dissolution Order : Illegal and unconstitutional phone tapping and eavesdropping". To reproduce excerpts :

".....it is necessary to discuss certain constitutional dimensions of the illegal phone tapping and eavesdropping........ the Constitution is based on the trichotomy of powers...... Although the three branches are inter-linked to a certain extent, e.g., the main organ of the executive, the Cabinet, is collectively responsible to the National Assembly.... Each pillar of the State must have the assurance that its correspondence and communications will not be illegally intercepted or interfered with...... What was going on was an invisible and silent surveillance being carried out deliberately and intentionally, in full awareness of the illegality of what was being done. The intent and the act were both mala fide and unlawful; the damage done had constitutional reverberations......

"The phone tapping and eavesdropping was being done by the Intelligence Bureau ("IB") which works directly under the control of the Prime Minister ... In the case of Judges, not only were the numbers at the Judges' rest house in Islamabad and Murree under surveillance, but the numbers of the following Judges were also being individually tapped [41 names listed]....

"That quite apart from the attack on the judiciary as an institution is the violation of individual fundamental rights by this phone tapping and eavesdropping....."

Ansar Abbasi & Jang Group Illegally Tape the Phones of Citizens & Judges - P - 1 (9 Apr 2009)

URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=95rtWVvqahw

Nawaz Sharif came in for his second round after the second dismissal of Benazir, and Senator Khalid Anwer joined his cabinet as law minister, and assumed his part of the collective responsibility, which, considering the extent of his learning, knowledge, and capability must be calculated as being at least ten times more than that of, say, the man who was Nawaz's education minister, Ghous Ali Shah. Nawaz and his government and his intelligence agencies in their turn telephone tapped and eavesdropped, also not sparing Judges and officials of the Supreme Court, as revealed by attorney-general Aziz Munshi in his arguments during the hearing of the petition filed by a number of parliamentarians challenging the second Nawaz dismissal (CP 63/99). Khalid appearing on behalf of the petitioners quite naturally had the decency to condemn the "tapping of the telephones of the Chief Justice of Pakistan and other Judges of the superior judiciary and called it a shameful act." REFERENCE: A laugh Ardeshir Cowasjee DAWN WIRE SERVICE Week Ending: 10 June 2000 Issue : 06/22 http://www.lib.virginia.edu/area-studies/SouthAsia/SAserials/Dawn/2000/jun10.html#alau

Ansar Abbasi & Jang Group Illegally Tape the Phones of Citizens & Judges - P - 2 (9 Apr 2009)

URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hyRQkewdj4Q

As for us, Volume VI of the Presidents written statement filed in the Supreme court in response to Benazir Bhuttos petition challenging her dissolution concerns the telephone tapping and the sending by the men of the Intelligence Bureau, who reported directly to the prime minister, of transcripts to the prime ministers house in envelopes marked For Eyes Only. It makes sorry reading, but there is much light relief in the code names given by Benazirs personal intelligence agency to the targeted individuals. Our judges were coded, by her tappers and tapers, as Blind Men and assigned numbers. For instance, Chief Justice Sajjad Ali Shah was BM-1, Justice Salim Akhtar was BM-3, Justice Ajmal Mian was BM-13. The superior judiciary was serialised up to BM-29. Moving lower down the scale, the chief of the public relations and Press affairs of our former prime minister and now PM presumptive, Mian Nawaz Sharif (also bugged with code name Guest), the one and only Mushahid Hussain (commonly known as Mushahid Sahib) was allotted the code name Smooth Operator. Who can deny that this appellation fits him perfectly?

Even Benazirs favourite Pir, Syed Ghulam Moeen-ul-Haq of Golra Sharif was hooked on to the tape recorders on November 2, 1996, three days prior to her dismissal. There was obviously not enough time to think up and accord him a suitable code name, but Blind Seer might have been fitting. Had he finally seen the light at the end of the tunnel, had he let the truth out and predicted a dismal future for his client? What had happened that day? Also tapped and taped was the telephone of Maulana Fazlur Rahman, Benazirs chosen chairman of the National Assemblys Foreign Affairs Committee who was sent by her around the world to represent our nation and who later was the worthy opponent in this last round of free and fair elections of Mussarat Shaheen. What on earth did she hope to learn from him? He was accorded the code name Wolf, though he bore little resemblance to that proud, lean, mean, canny, supple representative of the animal world.

Wiseman was the code for the Chairman of the Senate, the man who showed some economy with the truth, covering his tracks in the Supreme Court during the 1988 Junejo assembly dissolution case, the man who had reportedly been chosen and sent to the chief justice of the Supreme Court by the then Chief of the Army Staff, General Aslam Beg with a message. Wassem Sajjad, wise? Benazirs chosen president was not spared. His Information Adviser, Khwaja Ejaz Sarwar, was known to the IB tappers and tapers as Movie-I and his secretary, Shamsher Ali Khan, as Movie-2. Loyal uncle Ghulam Mustafa Jatoi was cryptically known as JT-1 and JT-2, a double honour. Senator Nasreen Jalil of the MQM bore the designation Sea Weed, and the delectable Ms. Saba, also of the MQM, whatever be the justification was endowed with the title Hot Bed. Her late lamented friend Mir Afzal Khan was also found worthy of scrutiny and named Evening Star (strangely apt, as his evening soon faded into night). Gallant army hero, Raja Nadir Parvez of the PML was coded as Panther. And happy-with-life, good old Chandi whose sonorous conversations lull one into a totally false sense of security, was known to Benazirs IB boys as Slim Jim.

All three of Nawazs Murree hideout telephones were put on the hook as of November 6, 1994. Cryptic talk of juicy Sirri Paya and Roghni Naan and Badami Sherbat no doubt helped Benazir stay in power for these past three insufferable years. Distasteful eavesdropping on opponents may be explainable but the list of friends, colleagues and supporters who have been bugged is long, and it should help us understand the working of the minds of all the sick IB buggers, tappers and tapers. The Blind and the Wise have now been officially debugged and the Supreme Court has managed to confiscate some 800 tapes. And not a day too the Chief Justice has, suo moto, constituted a bench of three Justices Saidduzzaman Siddiqui, Bashir Jehangiri and Nasir Aslam Zahid to lay down the laws and procedures to be followed by our future governments when they find it necessary and expedient to invade our castles.

To end, excerpts from Justice Kuldip Singhs judgement on taping, delivered in the Supreme Court of India in 1996 in the case of Peoples Union for Civil Liberties vs. The Union of India:

Telephone tapping is a serious invasion of an individuals privacy. With the growth of highly sophisticated communication technology, the right to hold telephone conversations in the privacy of ones home or office without interference is increasingly susceptible to abuse. It is no doubt correct that every government, however democratic, exercises some degree of subrosa as part of its intelligence outfit, but at the same time a citizens right to privacy has to be protected from being abused by the authorities of the day... The writ petition was filed in the wake of the report on Tapping of politicians phones by the Central Bureau of Investigation... Tapping telephones is a serious invasion of privacy... We therefore recommend that telephones may not be tapped except in the interest of national security, public order, investigation of crime and similar objectives under orders made in writing by the Minister concerned... The order should disclose reasons. An order for tapping of telephones should expire after three months from the date of the order. Moreover, within a period of six weeks the order should come up for review before a Board... It should be for the Board to decide whether tapping should continue... We, therefore, order and direct [that] an order for telephone-tapping... shall not be issued except by the Home Secretary, Government of India (Central Government) and Home Secretaries of the State Governments... The order shall require the person to whom it is addressed to intercept in the course of their transmission by means of a public telecommunication system such communications described in the order [and] to disclose the intercepted material to such persons and in such manner as described in the order. The matters to be taken into account in considering whether an order is necessary... shall include whether the information which is considered necessary to acquire could not reasonably be acquired by other means... The use of the intercepted material shall be limited to the minimum that is necessary... Each copy made of any of the intercepted material shall be destroyed as soon as its retention is no longer necessary...REFERENCE: Villainy Ardeshir Cowasjee DAWN WIRE SERVICE Week Ending:13 February 1997 Issue: 03/07 http://www.lib.virginia.edu/area-studies/SouthAsia/SAserials/Dawn/1997/13Feb97.html#vill

Tonight with Jasmeen - 1 (23 May 2010 SAMAA TV)

URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cA1pGeewzhI

- PFUJ’S DEFINITION AND SAD STORY OF PAKISTANI JOURNALISM [Deteriorating not day by day but by hour] - First it was Let Us Build Pakistan!! NO NO NO Jews are behind it, NO NO Zionists are behind it, NO NO NO Zardari is behind it [Mariana Baabar says so Anchor Cast Adrift What’s behind the tapes of TV host Hamid Mir’s chat with a Taliban man? MARIANA BAABAR MAGAZINE MAY 31, 2010 http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?265494 ], NO NO Zardari is not behind it but RAW is behind it, NO NO Quadiyanis are behind it but NO NO NO Hussain Haqqani behind it, NO NO some serving Generals behind it, God damn my Journalist Colleagues who are actually behind it. [Hamid Mir's View] - Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists, the top body of media and custodian of ‘freedom of speech and civil liberties. Conspiracy against Hamid Mir by an aggrieved person i.e. Osama Khalid s/o Khalid Khawaja [but MARIANA BAABAR says Lollywood film directors searching for a script to produce a thriller are best advised to read Let Us Build Pakistan (LUBPhttp://criticalppp.org/lubp/) on the website criticalppp.org, which is advertised as a project of critical supporters of the Pakistan People’s Party.

Tonight with Jasmeen - 2 (23 May 2010 SAMAA TV)

URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9CGHnbXsoQ8

I am forced to believe that some elements in the intelligence used my media colleagues against me because I was not in control of any intelligence outfit. [Hamid Mir in Washington Times] - 

Ansar Abbasi has almost indicted Hamid Mir in the case of Khalid Khawaja: Live with Talat – 20 May 2010 MAY 20, 2010 . in Live with Talat Naseem Zehra (Anchor), Zafar Abbas (Residen Editor Dawn), Kashif abbassi (Anchor) and Ansar abbasi (Analyst) in Today’s episode of Live with Talat with Talat Hussain – Ansar Abbasi and Talat Hussain’s statement telecast above which has almost indicted Hamid Mir, Ms. Nasim Zehra [Former Key Member of General Musharraf's Think Tank] has also raised doubts on Hamid Mir’s confusing and constantly changing statements. Ansar Abbasi did the same in Jasmeen's Program Ansar Abbasi says in Jasmin Manzoor Program that, he talked with Hamid Mir and Hamid said that its not his voice and then Ansar deny himself that Hamid also said that as per Hamid Mir “some of his old calls were mixed and rejoined!!! What a Tragedy. Is this what you call Colleague or Professional Courtesy. 

Tonight with Jasmeen - 3 (23 May 2010 SAMAA TV)

URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bfSk17cQ5PA

LAHORE: Osama Khalid, son of Khalid Khawaja, on Tuesday submitted an application in the Shalimar Police Station for registration of an FIR against TV talk show host Hamid Mir and suspected terrorist Osman Punjabi for the murder of his father, a private TV channel reported. Khalid Khawaja, a former Inter-Services Intelligence official, was murdered by a relatively less-known Asian Tigers militant group on April 23. Osama alleged that the talk show host had instigated the terrorists to murder his father. He said the application was based on the audiotape of Mir’s conversation with a member of the Taliban, and he was ready to prove in court that the audio clip was original. Khalid Khawaja, a former Inter-Services Intelligence official, was murdered by a relatively less-known Asian Tigers militant group on April 23. Osama alleged that the talk show host had instigated the terrorists to murder his father. He said the application was based on the audiotape of Mir’s conversation with a member of the Taliban, and he was ready to prove in court that the audio clip was original. REFERENCE: Osama seeks FIR against Hamid Mir, Osman Punjabi Daily Times Monitor Wednesday, May 26, 2010http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=20105%5C26%5Cstory_26-5-2010_pg1_7

Pakistani journalist Hamid Mir, who has been linked by several Pakistani websites to the killing of a former intelligence official by the Taliban, refutes the accusations in this e-mail sent to The Washington Times in response to an article that appeared in Tuesday's editions:

Tonight with Jasmeen - 4 (23 May 2010 SAMAA TV)

URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q4uuTQLgB4E

Dear Sir,

The Washington Times has published a story today "Terrorist Hit Puts Pakistani Reporter Under Fire" (by Eli Lake - Reporter - The Washington Times - 25 May 2010) http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/may/25/terrorist-hit-puts-pakistani-reporter-under-fire/pri WT said that Hamid Mir has old links with extremists because he interviewed Osama bin Laden. What about my interviews with Nelson Mandela, Tony Blair, Condoleezza Rice, Colin Powell, General Richard B Myers, Richard Armitage and Hilary Rodham Clinton? First of all, I am not the only one who interviewed Osama bin Laden. Robert Fisk interviewed him before me. Peter Bergen and Rahimullah Yousafzai are other examples. Now there are contradictions to be noted. Daily Times claiming that intelligence agencies have presented a report against me to the [Pakistani] Prime Minister. http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2010%5C05%5C20%5Cstory_20-5-2010_pg1_6 Initially a government senator was also attacking me on different TV channels but Information Minister Qamar Zaman Kaira clearly said on May 25 that Hamid Mir is a target of a conspiracy and government have nothing against him. President Zardari has also cleared it to me personally that nobody from [the Pakistan People's Party] is involved in this conspiracy. Family of Khalid Kahwaja openly declared me a CIA agent and also accepted that one son of Kahwaja works for al Qaeda. Come and see that banners are hanging on Murree Road and other areas of Rawalpindi in my support. These banners have been placed by traders, students and other sections of life. Common Pakistanis are with me but a section of ruling elite is against me. I am forced to believe that some elements in the intelligence used my media colleagues against me because I was not in control of any intelligence outfit. One of my crimes was that I wrote an article against a serving general of the Pakistan Army. I am still not sure that who is my actual enemy because nobody have come out openly against me yet. There is no FIR (police complaint), no official inquiry and nobody contacted me for any investigation. According to my information, this whole drama was organized after one of my articles against a serving Army General, Nadeem Ejaz, was published in The News on April 26.This General was involved in the assassination of Benazir Bhutto. U.N. report pointed fingers towards him but President Asif Ali Zardari government failed to nab him. http://www.thenews.com.pk/top_story_detail.asp?Id=28496 REFERENCE: Hamid Mir responds By Hamid MirUpdated: 5:59 p.m. on Tuesday, May 25, 2010 http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/may/25/hamid-mir-responds/?page=4http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/may/25/hamid-mir-responds/?page=3

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/may/25/hamid-mir-responds/?page=2http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/may/25/hamid-mir-responds/

Tonight with Jasmeen - 5 (23 May 2010 SAMAA TV)

URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Yqq5GtfedI

Who were the True & Bonafide Journalists in Pakistan?

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He was an institution in himself; he was an archive of the pres; he was the voice of freedom—but he was also a man. So he had to die and he died on Friday, the 11th of June in Karachi. But people like Zamir Niazi try to make the world a better place to live in. That is why they are distinguished human beings. Zamir Niazi earned this distinction by writing the history of the freedom of the press in Pakistan.

The first book, Press in Chains (1985), chronicled the history of the press since James Augustus Hicky’s Hicky’s Bengal Gazette or Calcutta General Advertiser (1780). This was the period of the East India Company’s rule which was in the process of consolidating its power over India. Under the circumstances it could not allow even the obvious villainies of its functionaries to be exposed. Hence the restrictions and the clamping down of quasi-legal restraints on the press.

But Zamir Niazi was not only a historian of journalism. He was a man with a mission. He wanted to prove that the rulers of Pakistan, despite having legitimized themselves in the name of ‘democracy’; were no less averse to the freedom of the press than were the British. Thus, from chapter 2 onwards, this book concentrates on Pakistan and dwells in detail on Ayub Khan’s martial law and his draconian measures to gag the pres.

The idea of the history was born in 1965 when ‘press advices’ were issued to the press. Altaf Gauhar, the Information Secretary who was the architect of this system of control, later met Zamir Niazi in his (Niazi’s) modest Gulshan-e-Iqbal house. At that time Altaf Gauhar had come to seek material on the press from the Grand Old Man of journalism. And Zamir Niazi showed him much of this material. Altaf Gauhar also tells us how Zamir Jafri retuned the pride of performance he had been given on 23 march 1995 in July the same year in order to protest the excessive use of force by the state in Karachi (in Hikayat-e-Khounchkan, 1997).

Zamir Niazi’s second major book was the Press Under Siege (1992). This book dealt with the violent post-Zia years up to 1991. These were the years of the rise of the MQM in Karachi and hardly anyone dared to report, much less criticize, the violence of the MQM against the press. Zamir Niazi, despite his support of the ordinary people of Karachi and some of the issues the MQM dwelt upon, did not hesitate to write against the high handed tactics of the MQM workers just as he reported such events elsewhere. The book ended with a moving appeal to the civil society to value the press. He wrote:

… we all have to stand up today against the twin menace of state restrictions and street barbarism. Perhaps it will be our last chance to do so. Perhaps tomorrow it will be too late. Perhaps tomorrow will never come.

What ominous words but how moving—and how true!

The third major book the Web of Censorship (Oxford University Press, 1994) goes over much the same ground as the previous ones but from a different angle. It does not occupy itself so much with individual acts of censorship, suppression and violence as with the nature and the process of censorship. In a word, the book connects violence with the lack of democracy which we have been experiencing. In a sense, this was a sequel and a theoretical analysis of the data marshalled together in the earlier books.

These are Zamir Niazi’s major works and I have given a gist of them because the Zamir Niazi who is a public figure, the Zamir Niazi I know, lives in his work and through his work. I do not know his personal life beyond such anecdotes or glimpses which are provided by other people such as in Hikayat-e-Khoonchikan. But I know that his trilogy is the best thing which happened to journalism in our part of the world.

I have been saying earlier, and many journalists have agreed with me, that the standards of Pakistani journalism have improved over the last twenty years. This is worth reiterating because other institutions do not seem to have improved noticeably. And why journalism has improved is because there were very brave and intelligent journalists around. This is really remarkable because the state does not protect or promote journalists, especially these who adhere to the truth despite the dictation or will of the functionaries of the state. Even parents do not encourage their children to become journalists. And still, despite the high risk and low pay, journalism has improved. Zamir Niazi’s books tell us exactly how much journalists have dared, and in what incredible ways they have suffered, to have earned respect in the eyes of those who cherish a free press.

The merits of a free press are so well known that it would be unnecessary to emphasize them but for the fact that many Pakistanis want the press to remain ‘in chains’. It is only the press which can present any country from becoming a concentration camp. The press should be free to publish what it likes, barring ordinary libel, even if this leads to yellow journalism and the sensationalism associated with tabloids. In time the tabloid form will find its lowly place and the reliable paper will assert itself as the voice of truth. The only homage we can pay to Zamir Niazi is to value cherish and preserve a free press. Than this, there is no greater homage. REFERENCE: Farewell to Zamir Niazi by Dr. Tariq Rahman http://www.tariqrahman.net/newspaper/Farewell%20to%20Zamir%20Niazi.htm

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