Pakistan counters militant propaganda

by Zia Ur Rehman

June 18, 2012

http://centralasiaonline.com/en_GB/articles/caii/features/pakistan/main/2012/06/18/feature-02

KARACHI – In a bid to counter the transmission of negative propaganda by banned militant outfits through the media, the Pakistani government has issued an updated list of 40 banned organisations that it doesn’t want TV channels to cover.

Media coverage emboldens militants, security analysts and government officials contend.

A news vendor puts the latest newspaper on the gate of a closed shop in Abbottabad in May 2011. New media regulations prohibit coverage that glorifies or promotes the message of militant groups. [REUTERS/Akhtar Soomro]

The Federal Home Department recently updated the list of banned religious and militant groups and charity organisations, Daily Express reported May 22.

The list issued by the Federal Home Department includes the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) , al-Qaeda, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, Nifaz-e-Shariat Muhammadi, Lashkar-e-Islam, Haji Namdaar Group, Hizb ut-Tahrir, Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan, Jaish-e-Muhammad, Jamiat-ul-Furqan, Lashkar-e-Taiba, Sipah-e-Muhammad Pakistan, Millat-e-Islamia Pakistan, Khidam-e-Islam, Muslim Students Organisation Gilgit Baltistan, Tehreek-e-Islami and other organisations, Daily Express reported May 22.

The TTP, al-Qaeda and Afghan Taliban have links to many of the groups listed.

Three charity organisations – Al-Rasheed Trust, Al-Akhter Trust and Jammat-ud Dawa – are also included, whereas Sunni Tehreek has been put on the watch list, the report adds.

On May 21, the Federal Home Department issued the list of 40 banned outfits to the Pakistan Electronic Media Regularity Authority (PEMRA), a governmental body that regulates private electronic channels.

Media coverage encourages Taliban militants

PEMRA directed all private TV channels not to give coverage to outlawed outfits included in the updated list, Daily Awam reported May 22.

The directive is intended to prevent the groups from promoting and justifying their activities. Prohibited are interviews with members of the groups and coverage of political and religious statements as well as airing of videos and recordings that support their goals. The directive does not prohibit coverage of terrorist acts the groups commit or attribution of such attacks to groups who claim responsibility.

“The recent decision to impose a ban on providing coverage to banned militants outfits seems an attempt to stop the inadvertent glorification of the terror groups in Pakistan,” said Abdul Basit, a security analyst associated with the International Centre for Political Violence and Terrorism, a Singapore-based think tank.

Pakistani electronic media have provided airtime to banned militant outfits in a bid to convey both the governmental and militant points of view, Basit said. But some journalists who sympathise with militants have given them more airtime and, knowingly or unknowingly, promoted their viewpoint, he told Central Asia Online.

“It is necessary that media personnel should make sure that … they do not become a tool in glorification of these terrorist outfits,” he stressed.

“The portrayal of militancy in the print and electronic media sends horrifying messages to the public,” said Muhammad Hafeez, a Karachi-based civil society activist. “The Taliban, who are killing innocent people … are drawing strength from media coverage.”

The media should highlight human rights abuses and massacres of the innocent by the Taliban, he stressed.

Pakistani law prohibits media from promoting the activities of banned outfits, especially Taliban militants, legal scholars say.

“Section 11(W) of the Anti-terrorism Act 1997 is very clear about the role of the media while printing, publishing or disseminating any material to incite hatred or coverage of any person convicted for a terrorist act or any proscribed organisation,” said Ashraf Hussain, a legal practitioner.

“A person commits an offence if he prints, publishes or disseminates any material, whether by audio or video-cassettes or by written, photographic, electronic, digital, wall-chalking or any other method which incites religious, sectarian or ethnic hatred or gives projection to any person convicted for a terrorist act, or any person or organisation concerned in terrorism or proscribed organisation or an organisation placed under observation,” sub-section (1) of that law says.

The law stipulates a maximum of six months’ imprisonment and a fine for anyone convicted under sub-section (1), Hussain told Central Asia Online.

However, media organisations flout the law, Hafeez and Hussain both said. Some organisations have paid a price for doing so. In January 2011, PEMRA fined two satellite TV channels, SAMAA and Waqt TV, Rs. 1m ($10,600) each for broadcasting images of terrorists and their bloody handiwork.

Double-edged sword for journalists

Publicity-hungry Taliban militants have killed Pakistani journalists when media coverage turned elsewhere, media personnel and analysts say. Pakistan is considered one of the most dangerous countries for journalists, analysts add.

“When journalists promote one side’s view, the Taliban threaten them and on many occasions killed the journalist who refused to accommodate their viewpoint or did (allegedly) one-sided reporting,” Basit said.

Forty-two journalists have been killed in Pakistan since 2002, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists, a New York-based group. Most of them were killed in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. The first reporters to die in FATA and KP were Allah Noor and Amir Nawab, killed in 2005 in the Wana area, South Waziristan.

Most recently, Mukarram Khan Atif, a Mohmand Agency-based reporter, was killed in January in Charsadda District, KP, by unknown gunmen. The TTP later took responsibility for his death and threatened to kill other reporters.

A wave of terrorism against journalists has engulfed all Pakistan, lamented Yousaf Amin, secretary general of the Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists.

On February 12, that wave lapped up against senior Karachi-based journalist Ashraf Khan, who received a threatening letter in Urdu from Abu Hamza Kalachvi, the self-proclaimed chief of the TTP Karachi chapter. Kalachvi was angered that Khan had written stories on the operations of Taliban militant outfits in the city, the Asian Human Rights Commission said in a statement.

Khan and his family have gone into hiding.

In Swat, which the Taliban controlled in 2007-2009, the militants would warn reporters of dire consequences if they failed to cover them in a “proper” light, recalled a senior journalist in Swat, requesting anonymity for security reasons.

The militants have sent pamphlets to journalists, titled “Intebah”(“A warning”), that were issued by the commander of the fidayeen (suicide bombers) section of the TTP, he said.

China concerned about Uyghur rebels operating in Pakistan

by Zia Ur Rehman

June 8-13,2012

http://www.thefridaytimes.com/beta3/tft/article.php?issue=20120608&page=5

During his recent visit to Islamabad, Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi asked the Pakistani government to take action against ethnic Uygur Islamic militants present in its lawless tribal areas.

Pakistan and China have enjoyed friendly ties for six decades, but Beijing has recently expressed reservations over alleged links between Pakistani militants and the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM). Chinese authorities are said to be concerned about presence of the ETIM militants in Pakistani territory, where they say the fighters are being trained before they cross into Xinjiang to carry out militant attacks. But they did not discuss the issue publicly to ensure they don’t embarrass Pakistan. The ETIM is also described as the Turkistani Islamic Party (TIP).

In an April 5 statement, Chinese Ministry of Public Security published a list of six terrorists with their profiles, saying they were operating in South Asia, without naming Pakistan. According to the Chinese list, Nurmemet Memetmin, who was described as the “commander of the ETIM”, was sentenced to 10 years in prison in a “South Asian country”, but he escaped in 2006 and has been planning new attacks against China, including the late July attacks on civilians in Kashgar. After the Kashgar attacks, Chinese authorities had invited then Inter-Services Intelligence chief Lt Gen (r) Ahmed Shuja Pasha to Beijing in August and told him the militants had allegedly been trained in Pakistan’s tribal areas.

 

An ETIM videos show children training allegedly in Pakistani tribal areas

Xinjiang, which borders Pakistan and Afghanistan, is home to ethnic Uygurs, a Turkic-speaking and largely Muslim people who make up about 40 percent of the region’s population. Founded in 1997, the ETIM is fighting to liberate the Muslim-majority Xinjiang province (also called East Turkestan) from China. The Chinese government says such groups – linked with Al Qaeda -are responsible for unrest in the province.

In the most serious incident of violence in decades, 197 people were killed and about 1,700 others injured on July 5, 2009, when riots between Uygur and Han ethnic groups erupted in the regional capital of Urumqi. Analysts say the riots shattered the authoritarian Communist Party’s claims of harmony and unity among dozens of ethnic groups in China.

Experts on militancy confirm the presence of militants of the ETIM in Pakistan’s North and South Waziristan regions where several other foreign and international militant groups, such as the Al Qaeda, Islamic Jihad Union (IJU), the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), the Islamic Army of Great Britain and Ittehad-e-Jihad Islami also operate.

“There are dozens of Central Asian militants living in the tribal region,” said a militant associated with Hafiz Gul Bahadur. “But it is very difficult for us to distinguish between the Uzbeks, Tajiks and Uyghurs because of similar facial features.”

After Al Qaeda and the IMU, the ETIM is the third strongest foreign militant outfit operating in Pakistan’s tribal areas, says Aqeel Yousafzai, a Peshawar-based analyst. “The number of ETIM militants present in Pakistan has always been kept secret because it may hurt ties between China and Pakistan,” Yousafzai wrote in his book ‘Talibanisation’. According to his estimates, the number of Chinese militants in FATA was 50 to 300 during 2007-08.

The influence of ETIM among jihadi groups is so strong that the movement’s leader Abdul Shakoor Turkistani was rumored to be Osama bin Laden’s successor after his death in May 2011, said Muhammad Amir Rana, director of Pak Institute of Peace Studies (PIPS), an Islamabad-based think tank.

Rana said that the ETIM split into two factions last year. One concentrates on the separatist movement inside China, while a hard-line faction believes in a global jihad. Chinese militants are also present in northern Afghanistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, he added.

But the ETIM network has weakened significantly in recent years after a crackdown by Pakistani authorities and killing of many of its top leaders in drone strikes. Last year, Pakistan handed over to China a handful of Uyghur militants who were arrested by the security forces in the tribal areas.

ETIM chief Hassan Mashom was killed by Pakistani security forces in 2003. His successor, Abdul Haq Turkistani, was killed in a drone attack in May 2010. Abdul Haq, who is also known as Memetiming Memeti, became a member of Al Qaeda’s executive council in 2005, according to the United States Treasury Department, which declared him a global terrorist in 2009.

“We believe the ETIM is not only an enemy of China but also an enemy of Pakistan,” Interior Minister Rehman Malik told media when Haq was killed.

The writer is a journalist and researcher. He can be reached at zia_red@hotmail.com

Karachi police investigate private security agencies

 

by Zia Ur Rehman

June 1, 2012

http://www.centralasiaonline.com/en_GB/articles/caii/features/pakistan/main/2012/06/01/feature-01

KARACHI – After an increase in bank robberies in Karachi, the authorities have begun thoroughly investigating private security companies whose workers have been accused of criminal involvement.

Militants, especially those linked to the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), have robbed Karachi banks of US $18m (Rs. 1.6 billion) since 2009, police told Central Asia Online May 21.

Karachi police present arrested private security guards and weapons allegedly recovered from their possession at Special Investigation Unit headquarters May 10. The guards are charged with bank robbery, possession of illegal weapons, and providing weapons to militants. Authorities are thoroughly investigating private security companies accused of involvement in illegal activities and bank robberies. [Zia Ur Rehman]

Some private security companies don’t verify their employees’ background before hiring, opening the door to Taliban involvement in bank robberies, security analysts and police complain.

Karachi’s insecurity creates security jobs : 

Because of the law-and-order situation in the city, businesses, banks, schools and commercial centres are hiring more private security guards, said Syed Shakoor Ahmed, a traders’ leader.

“Karachi alone has more than 250 security companies with about 45,000 to 50,000 guards,” said Major (ret.) Munir Ahmed, a leader of the All Pakistan Security Agencies Association (APSAA).

The demand for guards at homes and businesses is increasing and the total number of guards is growing rapidly, Munir said.

But the number of cases where security guards have committed robberies is also swelling, police say.

Most of the robberies, especially of banks, are due to negligence of bank staffers and collusion by private security guards, Munir told Central Asia Online. But economic and professional frustrations also undermine security guards’ honesty, some observers say, citing low wages in the industry.

Taliban involved in bank heists : 

Militant groups have turned to bank robbery after coming under financial pressure when Pakistani authorities cut off their income sources abroad, especially those in Persian Gulf states, Central Asia Online reported in December.

Pro-Taliban elements have infiltrated private security agencies meant to protect the banks, according to police. Most recently, robbers took Rs. 6.8 m (US $73,100) from a private bank in Baldia Town’s Naval Colony May 14, more than Rs. 0.7 m (US $7,500) from a bank in the Ferozabad police station’s jurisdiction May 4 and Rs. 9.5m (US $102,100) from a private bank in the Sharah-e-Faisal area, Karachi, April 24.

Police haven’t ruled out inside help by security guards in those crimes, Abdullah Bhutto, a police officer, told Central Asia Online.

4 allegedly corrupt guards arrested :

After the increase in bank robberies, authorities have initiated an investigation of private security companies.

A Karachi police Special Investigation Unit (SIU) team May 10 arrested four security guards in Orangi Town in connection with charges of possessing and supplying illegal arms to criminals as well as committing bank robberies.

“Acting on a tip-off, they raided a branch of the (Shamwill) security company near Banaras Colony and arrested … Muhammad Farooq, Shameem Anwer, Muhammad Anwer and Muhammad Iqbal,” said Khurram Waris, a senior SIU officer.

“The SIU team recovered illegal weapons, including 15 repeaters, three 7mm rifles, two pistols and a number of bullets … during the raid,” Waris told Central Asia Online.

Shamwill employed unqualified personnel and supplied illegal weapons to criminals, he added. Police have sealed the Shamwill head office in the Pakistan Employees Co-operative Housing Society neighbourhood, but the owner and senior staff escaped, Waris said.

Scrutiny of security guards and companies :

“Some security companies conduct careless background checks … while others are just posing as security companies,” he said. “I have provided the banks the standard operating procedures on how to hire and train guards, but most of them have not implemented our protocols.”

The Sindh provincial government has also approached the State Bank of Pakistan to seek its assistance with verifying guards’ background, then-provincial Home Minister Manzoor Wasan said November 24. The government is deeply concerned about the growing number of bank robberies in which extremists were working as security guards, he said.

APSAA has also issued a record of blacklisted security guards who were involved in theft, fraud and bank robberies.

The government is working to monitor the hiring process of private security agencies to ensure they do not give jobs in Karachi to criminals and extremists, said Afzal Ali, an official in the Home Department.

The Home Department is preparing a list of all such companies for prosecution and to advise all legally operating agencies to register with APSAA to minimise complications, Ali said.

End

Kohistan cleric threatens NGO women with forced marriage

by Zia Ur Rehman

June 1-7, 2012

http://www.thefridaytimes.com/beta3/tft/article.php?issue=20120601&page=4

On May 4, Maulana Abdul Haleem, a former parliamentarian elected from Kohistan district, warned women working in non-governmental organizations (NGOs) against entering his district, and said violators would be forcibly married to locals.

“If women working in NGOs enter Kohistan, we won’t spare them and solemnise their nikah (marriage) with local men,” he said.

Haleem, who was elected on a Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) ticket in 2002, also opposes what he calls secular education for women and says Islam does not allow women to work outside of home.

“We have taken the warning very seriously,” said an NGO official, who asked not to be named. “A number of international and national NGOs carrying out their aid projects in earthquake-hit areas of Hazara division have been targeted several times before.”

Attacks on NGO offices in Hazara:

Kohistan and other districts of Hazara division were amongst the worst hit in the devastating earthquake in 2005. National and international humanitarian groups responded to the crisis and began rehabilitation and development projects in the area. Most of these projects still continue.

A senior police official said hundreds of men and women work in over a dozen humanitarian organizations in various parts of Hazara, especially in Mansehra and Kohistan. Local Taliban militants have carried out a number of attacks on the offices of such NGOs and killed their staff, he said.

On March 9, 2010, six people including two women were killed when the militants attacked the office of World Vision, an international aid organization in Oghi tehsil in Mansehra. The dead were Pakistani employees of the organization.

On April 6, 2009, four people including three female staffers of a USAID-funded project Rise International were brutally killed by militants in Shinkiari area of the district.

Unidentified militants attacked an office of Plan International, a British NGO, in Mansehra on February 25, 2008, killing four members of its staff.

In March this year, Jandul Hifza, or Hifza Brigade, has threatened to attack NGOs, co-educational schools, cyber cafes, CD shops, and cable TV operators in Mansehra.

“A number of NGOs working in the region have received threatening letters from militant outfits,” said a security adviser working for an international NGO. “In such an environment, irresponsible statements like the one issued by Haleem create security problems for NGOs and their staff.”

“There are several reasons behind these threats,” says Bushra Gohar, a parliamentarian from Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa. “The NGOs that challenged the status quo were threatened and intimidated. Clerics and groups misinterpret religion to threaten peaceful citizens, mainly women and children,” she said. “This is not a new phenomenon in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and FATA. Law enforcement agencies have failed to deal with real and perceived threats and their failure has encouraged such elements.”

Rights activists who worked on sensitizing and educating men and women of Kohistan about politics and voting rights were also threatened. In the by-polls held on November 24, women in Kohistan district were now allowed to cast votes.

“I have asked provincial authorities and my party, the ANP, to take these threats seriously and take appropriate action,” Bushra Gohar said.

Pakistan Humanitarian Forum (PHF), an alliance of about 50 aid organizations working in Pakistan, says there has been an increase in targeted attacks against national and international humanitarian organizations and their staff across Pakistan in the last four years. PHF says 19 aid workers have been murdered in the country since 2009 and at least 23 have been abducted. Five aid workers have been abducted and another three killed in separate instances in the first two months of 2012 alone.

Militancy in Hazara:

Hazara division had been comparatively peaceful until the military operation in Malakand, after which militants fled to the neighboring tribal area of Kala Dhaka (now district Torghar) where local militants led by Momin Khan and Maulana Dost Muhammad were already making inroads.

Soon they began subversive activities in the neighbouring districts of Hazara division, especially in Mansehra, Battagram and Kohistan, attacking the offices of international aid organizations and police stations.

Kala Dhaka was converted from a semi tribal area to a settled area in January 27, 2011 and renamed Torghar, in an attempt to safeguard other parts of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, especially the strategically located Hazara division.

Although the local administration and police deny the presence of Taliban in Hazara, journalists and tribal elders say militants are operating in Kala Dhaka and Mansehra districts. Several Kashmiri jihadi group ran eight training camps in Batrassi forests and hills of Paka valley of Mansehra long before the events of 9/11. These camps were eventually closed down.

On February 20, 2010, militants attacked Mansehra and Balakot police stations killing a station house officer (SHO) and injuring nine other policemen. Eight people were killed in an attack on a public rally led by Amir Muqam, a central leader of Pakistan Muslim League, on July 11, 2011 in Battagram.

16 Shia passengers were shot dead in a sectarian attack on a bus in Harban Nala in Kohistan on February 28. Outlawed militant outfit Jundallah claimed the responsibility for the attack.

Locals say the attacks were carried out either by Lashkar-e-Ababeel, a militant outfit headed by Mujahid Mohiyuddin, or the Momin Khan-led militant group operating in Torghar. A local journalist, asking for anonymity, told TFT that Mohiyuddin was also named in the February 25, 2008 attack on the office of Plan International. The militants do not have a strong organizational setup in the area like they had in Swat, and carry out hit-and-run raids, the journalist said.

There is speculation that international NGOs may roll back their operations in the region because of the threats, and that has concerned the local community.

“The suspension of activities of NGOs that are doing good work would deprive local communities of the much needed social services and development initiatives,” Bushra Gohar said.