Two sons of a leading local journalist were
gunned down by men on a motorcycle yesterday in Khuzdar, in the troubled
southwestern province of Balochistan, in a suspected reprisal for his
reporting or act of intimidation against all journalists in the region.
Siraj Ahmed Khan, 25, died on the spot while Manzoor Ahmed Khan, 22, died from his injuries this morning in a local hospital. Their father, Nadeem Gurjinari, the president of the Khuzdar Press Club and a reporter for the Daily Express and Express News TV,
had received repeated threats and had recently stopped writing because
of an increase in the frequency of reprisals against journalists.
Reporters Without Borders calls on the authorities to
conduct an independent investigation into the double murder without
delay and to not rule out the possibility that it was a reprisal
targeting the victims’ father, a well-known journalist.
"If this possibility is confirmed, it will show that the
enemies of freedom of information are resorting to the most extreme
forms of cruelty and are displaying a complete contempt for the
fundamental freedoms courageously defended by media workers," Reporters
Without Borders said.
The Balochistan Union of Journalists (BUJ) has condemned
the attack. “We reminded the government every time that this continuing
wave of attacks against the journalists should be checked and every
time the government disappointed us," BUJ president Essa Tareen told
Reporters Without Borders.
"Balochistan is one of the world’s most dangerous
regions for the media," Reporters Without Borders said. "Caught between
government forces and Balochi armed separatists, journalists are
suffering the consequences of the impunity with which their colleagues
have been attacked or killed in the past.
"This just encourages an escalation in violence and
self-censorship, now the only solution for journalists in this region
who want to stay alive. We urge the government to react as a matter of
urgency to their repeated attacks on media personnel."
The most recent previous media victim in Balochistan was Abdul Haq Baluch, a reporter for ARY News TV and two newspapers, the Daily Awan and Tawar, who was gunned down in Khuzdar
on 29 September. At least eight journalists have been killed in
Pakistan so far this year, of whom at least three in Balochistan.
Ranked 151st out of 179 countries in the latest Reporters Without Borders press freedom index, Pakistan was the world’s deadliest country for the media for the second year running in 2011 with 10 journalists killed.
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