PESHAWAR: Freedom Network, a national media watchdog organisation, has urged Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in an open letter to appoint a full-time public prosecutor to fight back the growing climate of fear and intimidation among journalists.

The call for establishing the prosecutor’s office comes on the eve of the UN’s International Day to End Impunity for Crimes against Journalists being observed on Sunday (Nov 2).

“Urgent appointment of a full-time federal special prosecutor with full executive authority is essential to probe cases of attacks against journalists and file their cases in courts to pursue justice,” Freedom Network (FN) said on Friday in an open letter addressed to the prime minister. The prosecutor should have the appropriate office, staff and budget to do this job well, it said.

It added: “Since your government took power in 2013, the attacks on journalists continue. Prominent TV anchor Hamid Mir survived a life attempt in Karachi in March 2014, but Irshad Mastoi, the bureau chief of Online news agency in Quetta, was not that fortunate. He was killed in August this year.

Media watchdog asks PM to help combat impunity against journalists

“Urgent enactment of a special law on media safety should be made, which should incorporate measures and mechanisms on journalists’ safety, and adequate compensation packages for families of the deceased, besides appropriate legal and medical assistance,” the letter went on to demand.

Over 100 journalists and media workers have been killed in Pakistan since 2000. At least 13, including a media assistant, have been killed in 2014 alone.

Over half of all these journalists killed in Pakistan since 2000 were target-killed. Pakistan is ranked 9th on Committee to Protect Journalists’ Global Impunity Index of the top 10 worst offenders for unpunished murders of journalists.

“The key characteristic about all these journalists killed is that except for one – Wali Khan Babar of Geo TV – the killers of no other Pakistani journalists have been identified and punished. This lack of justice and failures by successive governments to find, prosecute and punish the killers has promoted impunity. This impunity – exemption from punishment – has emboldened the forces opposed to the public watchdog role of media and democracy itself to continue persecuting and executing journalists,” the FN’s open letter reminded the prime minister.

It said that journalists working in rural and tribal areas were the most at risk, particularly those working in the Fata, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan, ‘who are exposed to stress and danger from security agencies, militant groups, district administration and tribal leaders’.

The letter says that the PML-N government should ensure that all state institutions uphold the fundamental right of freedom of expression.

Published in Dawn, November 1st , 2014