Government defends defamation announcement

The Pakistani government has defended its warning to the country's media to refrain from quoting or publishing reports from what it terms a "news website originating outside the country". "This announcement was not aimed at anyone specific. It is just to remind journalists not to print defamatory statements," the principal information officer of Pakistan's press information department, Akram Shaheedi, told IRIN in the capital, Islamabad, on Wednesday. The website in question - an electronic version of the South Asia Tribune has been operated by a Pakistani journalist, Shaheen Sehbai, living in exile in the US since March this year. He left Pakistan after he said he was under threat from President Musharraf's government. However, the announcement did not refer to Sehbai or his website by name. Saturday's warning was described as regrettable by the France-based journalist protection group, Reporters Without Borders, which wrote to Pakistan's Information Minister Nisar A Memon saying the announcement was a direct attack on the Washington-based newspaper website . The incident is seen as a substantial setback at a time when Islamabad has been moving towards greater press freedom. Some journalists in Pakistan contacted by IRIN however, felt government was only paying lip service to press freedom. "Whenever a journalist asks the president a controversial question, he or she is never invited again to a press conference by him," bureau chief of the Daily Times newspaper, Iqbal Khattak, told IRIN from Peshawar, the provincial capital of the North West Frontier Province (NWFP). "Sehbai was known for his investigative journalism when he was working for the News [newspaper] and that is why they didn't like him," he added. Although there had been signs at the start of Musharraf's takeover in October 1999 that journalists could report more freely, there have been some major set backs, including the abduction of three journalists over the past year, Khattak explained. The official warning was sent out by the information ministry in the form of a letter, primarily to newspapers. "Some newspapers and periodicals in Pakistan are reproducing stories and reports placed on a website originating from outside the country. These reports are concoctions and fabrications targeted to malign the government of Pakistan and its senior functionaries," the announcement from the ministry said. "There are rules and laws against defamation everywhere around the world. What we are asking is not unusual," Shaheedi observed. The communication to Pakistani journalists also pointed out that they could be at risk of prosecution under a new law against defamation. Convicted journalists could face a three-month prison sentence and a minimum fine of 50,000 Pakistani rupees (about US $900), as well as being ordered to publish an apology. "We hope that Pakistani journalists will respect this announcement, as defamation is a serious issue and we all have the right to protect our character if we believe that it has not been portrayed properly," he added.