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We can question ‘suspicious’ journalists, says Mazari

* Newspaper editor says no categorical denial of allegations issued
* Global news outlets slam paper for risking WSJ reporter’s security

Daily Times Monitor

LAHORE: We have every right to raise questions about ‘suspicious’ journalists and question their activities, Shireen Mazari, editor of a Lahore-based English daily, said on Tuesday.

According to a private TV channel, she was referring to a report, published by her newspaper, which questioned the credibility of Wall Street Journal correspondent Matthew Rosenberg and accused him of being a ‘spy’. Defending her newspaper’s stance, Mazari said those who broke the country’s laws and had frequently travelled to hostile lands such as India in the past, were liable to scrutiny by the Pakistani media. She said Rosenberg had ventured into FATA without permission from the government, adding that she had credible information that Rosenberg had met with certain ‘undesirable’ individuals.

Bone of contention: On Tuesday, Mazari’s newspaper carried an article, which alleged that Rosenburg had ties with the CIA and Blackwater (Xe Worldwide), the notorious US security firm already infamous for human rights abuses in Iraq. The article, however, drew widespread condemnation from foreign editors and heads of news organisations, who promptly wrote to Federal Information Minister Qamar Zaman Kaira, protesting the article which had “compromised [Rosenberg’s] security and raised questions about whether he can return to Pakistan to work safely in the future”. Heads of organisations including the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, BBC World News, CNN, The Times, the Guardian, Al-Jazeera and Reuters were among those who condemned the article.

West-only response: “The fact of the matter was that they did not deny the assertions made in the story,” Mazari maintained. Mazari also told the channel that the “so-called international group of media representatives that had signed the letter sent to Information Minister Qamar Zaman Kaira was primarily American and British,” and that it did not represent journalistic organisations worldwide.

She also asked why the media was not up in arms when a Pakistani Voice of America journalist was detained by the US for three months, or when The New York Times labelled Ansar Abbasi, a Pakistani journalist, “a Taliban”. She also referred to Pakistani journalist Fawad Shah, who broke the story about the presence of Blackwater (Xe Worldwide) in Pakistan. He was forced to flee the country because the Americans were threatening him, she said. “Fawad, who first went to Iran and then escaped to Armenia, has now managed to come back home, deciding to go public rather than being killed quietly,” she added.

Also talking to the channel, International Federation of Journalists General Secretary Aidan White said he was shocked by the article, adding that there was no substantive evidence against the reporter to prove the allegations levelled against him. He added that this report was based on accusations, and a newspaper that gets into the business of casually transmitting acquisitions is doing a disservice to journalists.

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