Press clubs in Pakistan unite to respond to threats against journalists

Six of Pakistan’s largest press clubs are working together to establish safety hubs for the country’s beleaguered media practitioners

Six press clubs representing over half of Pakistan’s community of 18,000 journalists, have agreed to work together to establish journalist safety resource hubs at their premises, making this one of the largest projects ever to engage media practitioners in the country. The aim of the safety hubs is to improve reporting, documentation and analyses of threats and attacks against journalists and media houses as a means of improving the response and assistance mechanisms for journalists in distress.

The elected leadership of the press clubs, including presidents and secretary generals of the Karachi Press Club, Lahore Press Club, National Press Club, Peshawar Press Club, Quetta Press Club, as well as the Dera Ismail Khan Press Club, attended an official launch of the safety hubs project in Islamabad on 5 November. The safety hubs project is managed by Freedom Network (www.fnpk.org), a Pakistani media development organisation, as part of the overall IMS Pakistan media development programme.

Speaking on the occasion, citing the organisation’s own research statistics, Freedom Network official Shaukat Ali said that 116 journalists have been killed in Pakistan since 2000 with over 2,000 attacked, injured, kidnapped, and arrested in the same period. He said these statistics were based on cases reported in the media only rather than actual numbers.

Morten Ostervang, the manager for IMS’ media development programmes in South Asia, said that the new project was expected to strengthen the response of media practitioners in Pakistan to threats.

“Pakistan is one of the pilot countries belonging under the umbrella of the UN Plan of Action against Impunity and Issues of Journalists’ Safety. An initiative such as the safety hubs project will likely offer lessons and practices for other countries in the world to improve their response mechanisms,” he said.

Adnan Rehmat, representing IMS in Pakistan, said there is growing consensus among journalists in the country to build the capacity to take organised action and customise response strategies to threats and attacks on the media based on accurate data and analysis.

“Safety Hubs can be the platform through which this can be done,” he said.

According to Iqbal Khattak, the National Coordinator on Media Safety for the Pakistan Coalition on Media Safety (PCOMS), the existing quality of evidence and documentation related to journalists threats is unacceptably poor despite the high levels of intimidation and attacks against media in Pakistan.

“This adversely affects appropriate and adequate responses to these threats and hence mitigation strategies,” he said, adding that this new project will hopefully improve the situation.

Also the presidents and Secretary Generals of the participating press clubs expressed their support for the safety hubs project at the inception event. Syed Bukhar Shah, the president of Peshawar Press Club, welcomed the new project and said it would help the larger community of journalists in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa organise and process the information about threats to improve their responses to mitigate risks.

According to Arshad Ansari, the president of Lahore Press Club, the safety hubs project is a timely initiative to fight back against the critical mass of diversifying and morphing threats against journalists. H. Khanzada, the general secretary of the Karachi Press Club said that the growing threats to media practitioners in Pakistan is worrisome and while the government is primarily responsible for life and liberty of all citizens, the community of journalists should take the lead in responding to these threats with initiatives like the safety hubs. Ahmed Khan Kamrani, the president of Dera Ismail Khan Press Club looked forward to partnering with their counterparts in other cities under this Freedom Network project to contribute to a collaborative process of responding to threats. Finally, Abdul Khalid Rind, Secretary General of the Quetta Press Club, said that the nature of threats against journalists was growing, requiring a more robust response which could be offered by the safety hubs project.

Read more about IMS’ media development programme in Pakistan here.