Renewed fatwa calling for “actions” against journalists!

Reporters Without Borders condemns a year-old fatwa naming certain Pakistani media and journalists as “enemies of the mujahideen” that was re-issued on 19 October in the form of a post on Twitter.

“We condemn this explicit and targeted threat to journalists, which greatly increases the dangers to which they are already exposed,” Reporters Without Borders said. “We urge the authorities to reinforce protection for the media and journalists named in the fatwa and to ensure that those responsible for this threat are no longer able to do any harm.”

The same fatwa was already issued a year ago, shortly after the Taliban shooting attack on the teenage activist Malala Yousafzai. A group that supports the outlawed coalition Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TPP) has claimed responsibility for reissuing it. The TPP itself has denied any role but did not dispute its message.

The fatwa designated Dewa Radio, Mishal Radio, Azadi Radio, Radio Aap ki Dunya, and the BBC as targets and included the photos of two nationally-known journalists – Hamid Mir, host of the programme “Capital Talk” on the TV channel Geo News, and Hasan Nisar, a Geo News reporter and commentator.

“Showing pictures of Hamid Mir and Hasan Nisar may encourage the banned TTP’s followers and sympathizers to physically attack the two journalists,” one of their colleagues told Reporters Without Borders.

According to the fatwa’s authors, employees of the named media should be given an initial warning and “may then be pardoned if they end their hostility to Islam and their anti-Muslim propaganda.” But “actions in accordance with mujahideen policy must be adopted with those who persist in their work.”

The fatwa accuses the named media of promoting secularism and western values in their coverage of the war on terror and says that, by refusing to use the term “martyr,” they are portraying the Taliban as terrorists and enemies of peace.

The fatwa has been reissued at time of intense media coverage of Malala Yousafzai after the European Parliament awarded her the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought on 10 October.

The Council of Pakistan Newspaper Editors issued a statement saying it would continue its mission of informing the public despite the threats.

Pakistan is a terrorist nation.  From the very beginning, the partnership between the US and Pakistan has been a marriage of convenience.  Pervez Musharraf asserts it was a forced marriage.  Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage warned Pakistan shortly after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, to be prepared to be bombed, to be prepared to go back to the Stone Age! 

In the fall of 2001, Americans toppled the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. Pakistan had previously helped to install the Taliban in power because it viewed it as an ally against its archenemy, India. So the end of the Taliban also meant the collapse of Pakistan's defensive strategy. Since then, Islamabad has worried that the US could hand over Pakistani intelligence to India.

Pakistan’s strategy is supporting terrorists that attack India.  Pakistan’s nebulous position toward the Taliban led to circumstances in which the world’s most wanted terrorist could reside safely under the nose of the military for six years. Al-Qaeda has links to the Taliban and to terrorists that target India. Thus Pakistan’s soft stance toward these groups ends up facilitating al-Qaeda and its agenda. Indeed, bin Laden struck a deal with Pakistan’s military leadership to ensure his safety in the country. This speaks volumes about the Pakistan’s dual policies on terrorism.

Shakil Afridi, a Pakistani citizen, was picked up by the Pakistani authorities a few weeks after the May 2, 2011, raid that killed Osama bin Laden. The doctor, at the behest of the U.S., led a phony vaccination campaign in Abbottabad, Pakistan, in an attempt to secure DNA evidence from the residents living inside the bin Laden compound. Afridi turned down an offer from the U.S. government to leave the country immediately after the bin Laden raid. Afridi says he never imagined he would be punished for helping to locate the architect of 9/11.  In May 2012, after he had been held for a year, a Pakistani court sentenced Afridi to 33 years in jail.

The Pakistan-based Haqqani, a veritable arm of Pakistan’s intelligence agency, attacks U.S. embassies. While Haqqani have conducted attacks against U.S. and NATO soldiers in the past, embassy attacks now represent an escalation against U.S.  Pakistan’s support of insurgent groups and terrorists is the most significant obstacle to achieving stability in the area.

Pakistan is a society based on tribal groups. Each clan maintains a complicated network of relations, like a mafia. Under these conditions, it hardly seems imaginable that Osama bin Laden could have spent years living unnoticed just a stone's throw away from Pakistan's most elite military academy, an institution as assiduously guarded as the US's West Point or Great Britain's Sandhurst.  Pakistani Intelligence officers knew about bin Laden’s home, but they got kickbacks to keep it secret!

Islam is a terrorist culture, not a religion.  Basil Venitis, venitis@gmail.com, http://themostsearched.blogspot.com @Venitis