Pakistan Journalists' Choice: FACE DEATH, OR JAIL

Pakistan Journalists' Choice: FACE DEATH, OR JAIL

hosted. ap.org

QUETTA, Pakistan (AP) -- The telephone call to local journalists generally comes in the late evening. The voice on the other end is harsh. He has a statement he wants printed, and he prefaces it with a terse order: "Report our messages without making any changes or we will kill you."
The calls come from Sunni militants notorious for violence against minority Shiites or members of secessionist groups that routinely blow up police stations and attack government facilities.

(visit the link for the full news article)

So much for being able to trust the press in certain parts of the world. When extremists can say "Print what we tell you or die" - well it calls in to question any and all stories reported in these regions.

It seems even Islamic extremists are modern enough to know the lessons of Stalin and Orwell.

Oh and if the journalist does print the story to protect his family?

But the late-night calls put the journalists in a bind. If they don't print the messages, they could be killed. If they do print them, they could face three years in prison under Pakistan's anti-terrorism laws. It's no surprise which risk they'd rather run. At least 20 journalists have been killed in Baluchistan the past six years, their bullet-ridden bodies sometimes found stuffed into sacks.

Needless to say I will not be pursuing a career in Pakistani journalism anytime soon.

Kudos to the brave soul who had the integrity to let the world know about this troublesome reality.

Now - we, on ATS, have more facts to consider when sourcing news from certain countries.

~Heff



hosted. ap.org
(visit the link for the full news article)

What a bad country to choose to be a journalist for a living .
I guess the prisons will be filled up with journalists choosing detention over death .

I would love to be able to say i'm surprised but that would be a lie. Sifting through the propaganda and false reports are the hardest part of denying ignorance in this day and age and as you said, kudos to those who bring these situations to light.

To paraphrase an old adage, "The first casualty in any war is the truth"

reply to post by pillock


And what a chilling way to control information from reaching us! It is almost as if the government and terrorists are in league to stop information flow!

Print it or die!
Well, print it and go to prison!

Given the choices the obvious answer emerges. Don't print anything at all - and change profession or leave the country. This will create a vacuum where information is unobtainable.

I wonder if these types of threats will spill over into social networking too... will kids with Twitter feeds end up with the same "No win" scenario?

It's always fishy when information is made criminal. Seems like somebody doesn't want the world to see their slip showing.

~Heff

In trying to figure out some context for why such a strange policy would be put in place, I've come across a couple of interesting articles. I could not include them in the OP - as the BAN forum has severe limitations on doing so. But I will add them here:

Pakistan sees US as major development partner—Prime Minister

SLAMABAD—Pakistani Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf Saturday said that his country regarded its relations with the United States as “very important” and that Pakistan valued it as a major development partner.
Ashraf’s remarks came after he held talks with US special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan Marc Grossman, who arrived in the Pakistani capital on Friday for talks with top officials.
“The Prime Minister said that relations between Pakistan and United States are very important and we value United States as a major development partner,” a statement issued by Ashraf’s office said.
“We have a shared objective in fighting terrorism and need to cooperate more to get rid of this menace,” the statement said.

The relationship between Islamabad and Washington has been rocky for years, and relations have only just resumed after nosediving following the raid that killed bin Laden and an air raid that accidentally killed 24 Pakistani troops.


Washington considers Pakistan’s semi-autonomous northwestern tribal belt as the main hub of Taliban and Al-Qaeda militants plotting attacks on the West and in Afghanistan.
Grossman also addressed the issue of the anti-Islam video circulating on the internet that has led to protests in a number of countries, the statement said.
He stated very clearly, as Secretary Clinton did, “that the United States Government had absolutely nothing to do with this video”, it said.
The movie, “Innocence of Muslims”, portrays Muslims as immoral and gratuitously violent. A mob stormed the US consulate in the Libyan city of Benghazi on Tuesday, killing the US ambassador and several other staff.

Source - story from 09/15/12

And:

Pakistan avoids inflaming anti-US protests

The Pakistani government and politicians across the political spectrum have condemned a controversial anti-Islam video that exploded into international awareness this week and sparked protests across Pakistan.

The National Assembly passed a resolution yesterday unanimously condemning the movie, made in the US, and the Foreign Office released a statement saying that the “government of Pakistan strongly condemns the airing of a defamatory video clip in the US, maligning the revered and pious personality of Prophet Muhammad.” Authorities also ordered the Pakistan Telecom Authority to block all Internet links to the video, although some links continued to function.

But while protests broke out, demonstrators stopped short of storming the US embassy in Islamabad and US consulates elsewhere in the country. The security establishment's interest in maintaining cordial ties with the US and early political condemnations played a key role in preventing protests from getting out of hand.

Source - 9/14/12

And:

Haqqani Designation Complicates Pakistan Relations

After long deliberations, the U.S. State Department has designated one of Afghanistan's deadliest insurgent groups to be a terrorist organization. The Haqqani network has been blamed for many attacks on U.S. troops and the embassy in Afghanistan. Although the group is made up primarily of Afghan fighters, it is based in northwest Pakistan.

And the U.S. decision to blacklist the group could complicate relations with Pakistan, just as they may have been beginning to improve. NPR's Jackie Northam joins us from Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan.

NPR Transcript Source - 9/8/12

There was also a story, from yesterday, about Pakistan asking the US to cease drone strikes - but it seemingly was pulled.

When I first posted this OP did I did so from the AP live feed simply as a statement about information control. But I am beginning to see this story as another piece in the puzzle regarding the worldwide psyop that is currently happening.

Forbidding journalists to print demands from terrorists seems, on the surface, to be a smart policy. But to threaten them with long prison sentences if they do not comply? A better policy would be to allow journalists to print the threats and then use that as a platform to out these groups, to vilify them, and to show the population just how evil they are.

But a total blackout of the subject? This smacks of agenda IMO.

Could the US State Department have a hand in this? Could they be blacklisting this to manipulate us?

~Heff

A bit more enlightenment here. Sixty one journalists and media workers killed in Pakistan since 1992. Fort-four for confirmed motives, Fifteen with unconfirmed motives. Plus the two media workers.

A timeline of media deaths in Pakistan:



And the types of stories the murdered reporters were covering:



I add these things to help provide a timeline and context.

~Heff

Originally posted by Hefficide
And what a chilling way to control information from reaching us! It is almost as if the government and terrorists are in league to stop information flow!

Some feel they are one and the same, I mean Pakistani ISI.

reply to post by SLAYER69


The ISI is the likely culprit. The whole aspect of wanting to keep a dirty house but also wanting to make it look clean and on the up and up to the US for political reasons.

My thoughts here tend to lead me to question if the policies aren't being ramped up right now. And, if so, to what ends. Obviously wanting to protect trade and aid with the US is a huge part of it. But it feels to me like there could be an underlying current of information control here that goes beyond those motives.

Strange, strange days we find ourselves in suddenly... Six months ago so much of todays reality would have only existed in dystopian fiction.

Thanks for replying Slayer!

~Heff

reply to post by Hefficide


To be honest.
Some of us have been watching Pakistan's activities going back years. I was moved to even write a well received thread on the topic last year...

US/China and Pakistan. No False Flag needed!

In it I pointed out the obvious fact that Pakistan isn't just a US/West issue in Afghanistan but one obviously to India and now even to China in their Western Provinces. Since then I've read many members state after Libya and the present situation in Syria.

"Just watch, Next the US/West will go after Pakistan with lies of Pakistan supporting terrorists just like they went after Syria and Libya"

Meanwhile I wrote this thread long before the present situations. For what it's worth..

reply to post by SLAYER69


Great OP! S&F! Posted during my hiatus and I'm sorry for missing it! Thank you for linking it here as it does provide great information and speaks directly to this OP.

Excellent work!

As I am digging through Google-land currently I'm half torn between the notion of false flag, in the traditional sense, and the theory that we could be seeing a paradigm shift towards a new WWII style redefinition of "us" and "them" in regards to the infinitely pliable label of terrorism.

Pakistan, India, and some Asian countries fall into a sort of ambiguity in this regard. They are cultures with very vocal Islamic populations - but are governed by more secular powers.

In the current polarizing atmosphere we might be seeing a hard ball press along the lines of "If you're not with us, you're against us".

Just speculation as I dig and read.

~Heff

reply to post by Hefficide

Pakistan & Islam are the smoking gun , if you choose not to be an Islam follower then you will be killed.
The Islamic movement has become a virus , they draw in followers by telling them Islam is peaceful then once they are drawn in they then show them Mohammad's preachings that all people who don't follow Islam are heathens that should be converted or killed. India as a country has many different religious beliefs and they mostly tolerate each others right to believe in what they want to believe , It is not always plain sailing but for the most part it is live and let live .
Why cant we all just be allowed to believe what we want to believe without risking our lives from extremists ?
I am an atheist , If I lived in Pakistan I would be stoned to death.

reply to post by Hefficide

So much for being able to trust the press in certain parts of the world. When extremists can say "Print what we tell you or die" - well it calls in to question any and all stories reported in these regions.

Happens on a regular basis in Mexico, except they dont give verbal warnings, theyll just abduct one journalist, hang him from a bridge with a giant banner next to him, warning the others that the same fate awaits them.

Originally posted by Hefficide

.............
And the types of stories the murdered reporters were covering:

I add these things to help provide a timeline and context.

~Heff

why does this chart add up to 139%, shouldn't it add up to 100%

reply to post by taws6


I would think because many stories cross genre. A story about military corruption might fall into "corruption", "military" and "politics" for example.

~Heff

Originally posted by SLAYER69

Originally posted by Hefficide
And what a chilling way to control information from reaching us! It is almost as if the government and terrorists are in league to stop information flow!

Some feel they are one and the same, I mean Pakistani ISI.

And the CIA.

In the East its done through threats of violence.

In the West, the media spreads propaganda in collusion with the establishment.

At-least theyre open about their coercion. It happens here as well, but our government is just better at hiding it:

Nixon White House Plotted to Kill Columnist

They must have some freedom of press, this story got out.

The best thing to do is to is LEAVE PAKISTAN for a while so that military can be brought in to kill those terrorists. Nuff said.

This has been a great read so far. Awesome contributions with a wide spectrum of on topic opinions.

One reason that this story caught my eye is the effects these things can have upon perspective. I call it taboo desensitization.

If Americans get used to the notion that media can be silenced elsewhere, that notion seems into our collective subconscious and we become much more apt to accept it should it begin happening here.

Often the second and third world are used as testing grounds for psyops that are meant for a much broader application later on.

~Heff