Media

In the run-up to this year’s election, Pakistani journalists, campaigners, and international media watchdogs complained of mounting censorship.

Now that the election is over, any discussion of the alleged rigging and irregularities that marred the process has emerged as an off-limits topic for the country’s newspapers and television channels.

As several Pakistani political parties gear up for protests this week, newspaper articles and TV talks shows that address the rigging or blame the powerful military for manipulating the vote to favor cricket star-turned-politician Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e Insaf (PTI) party are being censored. (The PTI, the military, the election commission, and the civilian interim government all reject rigging allegations and complaints of censorship.)

“The new wave of censorship is aimed at muzzling the voices disputing the election results,” Murtaza Solangi, a senior Pakistani journalist and television talk show host, told RFE/RL’s Gandhara website.

Journalist Syed Talat Hussain expressed his disappointment when Geo News, one of Pakistan’s leading television news outlets, censored part of his August 5 nighttime show that focused on election rigging allegations.

“Censorship is the last refuge of the culprit,” he wrote on Twitter. “This censorship and those enforcing it have turned free debate in this country next to impossible.”

Hussain said that Geo News’ editorial committee “made a complete joke” of his show by censoring its parts. He added that the censorship was prompted by his channel’s recent closure in various parts of Pakistan as it still faces threats of a complete shutdown.

“If the elections were not rigged, no one should have a problem with debating the allegations,” he noted.

Saleem Safi, another journalist working for Geo News, was less vocal after the channel apparently axed two of his interviews with leading politicians about the alleged vote rigging.

Despite promoting the shows, Geo News didn’t broadcast Safi’s interviews with Islamist leader Maulana Fazlur Rehman and Sardar Akhtar Mengal, president of the Balochistan National Party. Both have alleged rigging in the July 25 vote.

Pakistan’s English-language daily The Nation refused to publish politician Afrasiab Khattak's weekly column because it criticized the country’s powerful military for manipulating the election.

“If there was no industrial scale rigging in the recent elections, why is [a] critical analysis of the same blocked on TV [sic] channels?” he wrote on Twitter, “If intelligence agencies weren’t involved in rigging, why are they blocking media coverage of the opposition?”

Asif Ghafoor, a spokesman for the military, however, rejected imposing any censorship or manipulating the media.

“We have never told any journalist or media owners what to say and what not to,” he told journalists in June. “We have always told them that Pakistan needs to unite, and we need to bring forward its strengths and success. I thank media for their willing cooperation.”

In July, he dismissed criticism of the military as part of political posturing in an election year. "This is an election year. Political parties are fighting for power, and this fight has to be at each other’s expense,” he told journalists.

But since the beginning of this year, Pakistani journalists, television stations, newspapers, politicians, and international media watchdogs have complained about increasing censorship.

Solangi says censorship is extensive but targeted, which perhaps explains why it has not been protested widely by television and newspaper owners who are reliant on government advertising and some expect their media investments to always yield profits.

“The new wave of censorship is targeted and selective. Powerful voices with more credibility and more reach are the targets,” he said. “Raising questions about the recent electoral process, its legitimacy and fairness, are the new no-entry zones.”

Khattak sees ominous signs for press freedom. “They [the military] are pushing the censorship to an extent that it becomes the new normal and is not even questioned,” he told Gandhara RFE/RL.

Solangi, however, sees a mixed picture. “The media may get a breather,” he says while referring to the planned transfer of power to the new elected government this month.

He sees press freedom reversing if the new administration runs into problems.

“The cat-and-mouse game may start again as the new rainbow [coalition] setup starts breaking at the seams and if the united opposition creates a debilitating effect,” he predicted.

Afghanistan was already considered one of the most dangerous countries in the world for journalists, a consequence of decades of war and religious extremism.

But for some Afghan journalists, the risks have been amplified after a cleric in the western city of Herat recently declared jihad, or holy war, against the country’s besieged media.

The move has led to condemnation by religious authorities and the country's independent media, which have come under increasing attack and pressure from militants, ex-warlords, and sometimes even the government itself.

Hard-line clerics in the past have issued fatwas against media channels airing programs they deem un-Islamic or modeled on Western shows, although it is unclear why the cleric in Herat issued a religious decree against the media on July 15.

'Fulfilling Jihad'

During a Friday Prayers sermon, preacher Fazlur Rahman Ansari issued a fatwa, or religious decree, in which he said jihad against the media was "obligatory." It was unclear if Ansari is an official cleric.

"Whoever eliminates them is fulfilling jihad," the cleric told those in attendance. "Whoever is killed by them is a martyr."

NAI, an independent Afghan media watchdog, has condemned the fatwa and said such "irresponsible" actions could harm journalists.

"Such irresponsible fatwas will be exploited by extremist groups," said Hamed Momen, who heads NAI’s office in Herat.

The Taliban and the Islamic State (IS) extremist group have threatened and deliberately targeted major TV and radio stations and their staff members in recent years across Afghanistan, carrying out deadly attacks that have killed dozens of journalists and media employees.

'No Right' To Issue Fatwas

Jilani Farhad, a spokesman for the provincial governor, said it has launched an investigation and would address the issue.

The provincial department for religious affairs and the hajj said the preacher's fatwa was illegal and that only Afghanistan's Ulema Council can issue religious directives.

Sayed Mohammad Shirzadi, the head of the department, said hundreds of privately run mosques have been built in recent years in Herat Province and religious authorities do not recognize the credentials of its preachers. It was unclear if Ansari is among them.

"The decree of one individual does not represent the views of the Ulema Council and we will never recognize the fatwa of one individual," said Shirzadi. "This is simply the personal views of one individual who does not have the right to issue fatwas."

Afghanistan's constitution prescribes that "no law can be contrary to the beliefs and provisions of the sacred religion of Islam" and sometimes appears at odds with more liberal and democratic elements within it.

Islamic clerics on Afghanistan's Ulema Council are the country's religious authorities. But even their opinions on questions of Islamic law -- or fatwas -- are treated as guidance rather than legally binding decrees.

Afghan Media Under Attack

With 11 journalists killed, nine of them during a suicide attack claimed by IS militants in April, the first six months of 2018 have been the "bloodiest reporting period" ever for journalists in Afghanistan, the Afghan Journalists Safety Committee (AJSC), a local watchdog, said in a report on July 18.

Nine journalists, including two RFE/RL reporters and a trainee, were killed in the attack in the capital, Kabul, on April 30. Disguised as a reporter, the suicide bomber detonated his explosives among journalists who had gathered to cover an earlier suicide attack.

The AJSC said the attack was "a turning point in the nature of threats against media workers" and said "the intensity and scale of violence has been unprecedented." The committee said 10 journalists were killed over the same period in 2017. In total, 20 journalists and media workers were killed in 2017.

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RFE/RL Journalist Laid To Rest In Kabul

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In November, IS militants killed a security guard and opened fire on the staff of Shamshad TV, a private television station in Kabul. In May, IS militants attacked the building of state-run Radio Television Afghanistan (RTA) in the eastern city of Jalalabad, killing six people, including four RTA employees.

A suicide bomber in January 2016 attacked a minibus and killed seven employees of Tolo TV, the country’s largest private television network.

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) and its affiliate, the Afghan Independent Journalists Association (AIJA), said at least 73 journalists and media workers were killed in Afghanistan from 1994 to 2017.

The media watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF) ranked Afghanistan 118th out of the 180 countries in its Press Freedom Index.

Despite the dire numbers, Afghanistan's media development is often cited as one of the biggest achievements of the past decade, following years of Taliban strictures or outright prohibitions on all forms of music and television, as well as independently reported news.