Reporters Without Borders condemns the arrest, detention and interrogation methods used with Muhammad Zaib Mansoor, a journalist based in Dargai of Pakistan, in the northwestern province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, who was taken away for questioning by military intelligence on 17 October.
The methods violate the law and the guarantees of protection that journalists are supposed to enjoy.
“We demand Mansoor’s immediate release,” Reporters Without Borders said. “No one can be held like this for more than 24 hours. After that, the military must take him before a judge if they think he has committed a crime. Security for journalists in this part of the country is already bad enough without the authorities making it worse".
“We have other concerns. Why did Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) tap this journalist’s phone? Did they obtain a court’s permission to do this? How many other journalists is the ISI currently spying on?”
Reporters Without Borders added: “The freedom with which Pakistan’s intelligence agencies act poses a grave threat to freedom of the press and information. An investigation should be carried out with the aim of controlling the methods used by the different agencies.”
The disappearance of Mansoor, who works for the Dargai-based dailies Ayeen and Awaz-e-Swat, was made public yesterday by colleagues who were with him when he was “abducted” by military intelligence officials on 14 October.
His colleagues said they contacted military press officers, who told them Mansoor was being questioned about “suspicious phone calls” and would be released soon if he was innocent. It is not known if they were referring to calls made or received by Mansoor.
“We have been informed that Mansoor is in the custody of intelligence personnel after he was picked up for interrogation,” one of his colleagues told Reporters Without Borders. “He is a professional journalist and a very serious one. If he has done anything wrong, they should act according to law. But taking him away in such fashion worries all journalists.”
A journalist for the past 15 years, Mansoor is general secretary of the Dargai Press club.
Pakistan’s Tribal Areas are no-go areas for journalists from other regions, while foreign journalists have had no access to them at all since the United States launched its war on terror in 2001.
Reporters Without Borders is very concerned about the threat to journalists from the "Extraordinary Committee for the Defence of Democratic Achievements" (Comité extraordinaire de défense des acquis démocratiques- CEDAD), a new police organization led by Mahamat Nouradine Adam, a general in the former Seleka rebel coalition that ousted the previous government.
The editors of three Bangui-based dailies – Julien Bella of Centrafrique Matin, Maka Gbossokotto of Le Citoyen and Ulrich Landry Ngopkele of Quotidien de Bangui – have all been subjected to heavy-handed interrogation in the past month after publishing stories criticizing the CEDAD’s activities. None of these interrogations was sanctioned by judicial procedure.
“We condemn these arbitrary arrests and serious threats targeting journalists,” Reporters Without Borders said. “Without taking a position on the content of these newspapers articles, we think it is entirely unacceptable that media personnel are subjected to such intimidation.
“We appeal to the Central African Republic’s government to implement the undertaking that President Michel Djotodia gave on 3 May, World Press Freedom Day, when he promised that no journalists would be arrested for what they report or the views they express while he is president.
“It is important that the Extraordinary Committee for the Defence of Democratic Achievements (CEDAD) should live up to its name and really defend democratic values, which include media freedom, and that it should fulfil its stated mission of ‘ensuring security, calm and territorial integrity’.”
Gen. Nouradine was the Seleka strongman in the initial phase of the rebellion. After disputing the Libreville Accord and participating in the march on Bangui that led to President Bozizé’s fall, he was appointed minister in charge of public security, emigration and immigration, and public order on 31 March.
In theory, this gave him control of the police and gendarmerie. But on 23 August, a presidential decree reassigned the post to Pastor Josué Binoa and Gen. Nouradine was instead put in charge of the specially created CEDAD, which has established a degree of authority in Bangui.
According to the information received by Reporters Without Borders, it is the CEDAD that has been harassing journalists in recent weeks.
Ngopkele was summoned to Gen. Nouradine’s base on 9 October and was subjected to an initial interrogation there before being taken, with a hood over his head, to an unknown location and held for several hours in a cell. He was then interrogated a second time by Gen. Nouradine himself, who wanted to know the source of a 4 October article headlined “Followers of Gen. Nouradine beaten at Roux Camp,” referring to difficulties in the succession to the position of security minister. Forced to apologise before being released, Ngopkele continues to be harassed and threatened by CEDAD members.
When Gbossokotto responded to a police summons on 4 October, he was taken into custody by Gen. Nouradine’s officers, who told him he got his facts wrong in an article in Le Citoyen and accused him of using a hostile tone towards Seleka. Le Citoyensubsequently published a retraction.
Bella was summoned by the CEDAD on 30 September for questioning about an article in Centrafrique Matin’s 25 September issue revealing the existence of a secret CEDAD prison. The CEDAD police officers accused him of divulging classified information and trying to “destabilize” the government, and threatened to kill him. The next day, Centrafrique Matin published an article in which Bella apologized for revealing the prison’s existence and said the CEDAD was protecting the nation.
Reached by Reporters Without Borders, Gen. Nouradine acknowledged that he had summoned journalists but denied intimidating them. He nonetheless said that any future newspaper articles containing “mendacious allegations” would result in the jailing of the journalists responsible.
OCTOBER 18, DAY OF REMEMBRANCE FOR THE VICTIMS OF KLEPTOCRATIC REGIMES
EU practices double standards in civil rights. It’s freakish for EU to interfere in the civil rights of foreigners, but condone the abuse of my civil rights, a citizen of EU! EU should get its own house in order and quit lecturing others.
It’s been now three years since the freakish Greek government stole my life, my computer, and my files. Nobody cares, nobody gives a damn! I have done absolutely nothing, and I am being persecuted by the Greek government without any reason. This is against all rules of civil society and treaties that Greece has signed.
On October 18, 2010, a gang of six brutal policemen of the violent Greek Cyber Crime Unit (CCU) broke into my home in Athens and stole my computer, software, files, documents, and personal data.
The policechimps locked me in jail for a night, they humiliated me with handcuffs, fingerprints, mug shots, and lies, leaked false information to the media parrots, and the fucking Greek government initiated sham ex-officio court proceedings for a stack of stupid fictitious freakish charges!
There was neither pillow nor toilet facility in my jail cell. I had to urinate in a bottle! I, a 68 years old with high blood pressure, was not allowed to keep my hypertension pills with me. There was neither toilet paper nor soap in the whole CCU jail.
GREECE, A FAILED STATE, THE BLACK SHEEP OF FOURTH REICH, THE PARIAH OF OCCIDENT, ENEMY OF BLOGOSPHERE
Ex-officio law suit, autepageltos αυτεπαγγελτος, the most dreadful word in justice, means the state sues somebody without involvement of the accuser. This terrible scheme has been used by the freakish Greek government to persecute me. Mariliza Xenogiannakopoulou, Alternate Minister of Foreign Affairs, sued me, and she wouldn’t show up in court, because the state took over her position!
At the ex-officio law suit, the accuser just hits and runs! This hit-and-run justice is the most disgusting kangaroo justice on Earth. In all civilized nations, the accused is in a position to face his accuser eyeball to eyeball, but not in Greece, a failed state. The fucking accuser slings false accusations against you, the freakish state takes over, the accuser disappears from the kangaroo court, and the trial is postponed infinite times! venitis@gmail.com, http://themostsearched.blogspot.com
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