His Excellency Mohammad Rafiq Nawaz Sharif
Prime Minister
Islamabad
Pakistan
Vienna, 14 May 1999
Your Excellency,
The International Press Institute (IPI), the global network of editors and media executives, strongly condemns the arrest of Najam Sethi, editor of the independent, English-language weekly Friday Times, on May 8, by the Pakistani military Inter-Services Intelligence agency.
We are informed that Sethi was taken from his bedroom in an early morning raid by plainclothes officers, who did not produce an arrest warrant. Sethi was then accused of links with the intelligence services of India. Our sources also inform us, however, that Sethi and other outspoken, critical Pakistani journalists are being intimidated and arrested for taking part in a forthcoming BBC documentary about government corruption. Moreover, Sethi has recently been criticised in the official Pakistani media for a speech he had held in India in April which was critical of Pakistan’s development since independence and of its record of governance. A plea to produce Sethi was dismissed by a Lahore court which said that the suspect was in the hands of the military and therefore outside civil jurisdiction.
IPI believes that the government action against Sethi is an outright violation of everyone’s right to “seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers” as guaranteed by Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and is part of a campaign against journalists critical of the government of Pakistan. We therefore urge Your Excellency to ensure that Sethi be released immediately and unconditionally .We further urge you to ensure that all journalists are allowed to objectively report on developments in your country.
We thank you for your attention.
Yours sincerely,
Johann P. Fritz
Director