PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government announced on Wednesday that it would table a bill in the provincial assembly for enacting a law on protection of journalists so as to combat impunity for crimes against media and its practitioners in the province.

“The provincial government will table the bill on safety of journalists in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly soon,” said Mohammad Ali Saif, adviser to chief minister on information.

He was addressing a conference on ‘Safety of Journalists in Merged Tribal Districts’ held by Freedom Network to launch its report on the impact on media in the tribal districts of five years of merger of ex-Fata into Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

Barrister Saif agreed to work with an action committee, set up at the conference, to discuss proposals to include in the bill. The committee includes presidents of Khyber Union of Journalists, Peshawar Press Club, Tribal Union of Journalists and Pakistan Journalists Safety Coalition.

The 92-page report launched on the occasion, authored by Aurangzaib Khan, noted that press freedom situation and safety of journalists in tribal districts did not improve during the last five years since the erstwhile Federally Administered Tribal Areas were merged in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

The report “News tribes of northwest -- saving journalism in Pakistan’s tribal districts” was released at a meeting of Pakistan Journalists Safety Coalition (PJSC) Khyber Pakhtunkhwa chapter here on Wednesday.

Minister for Religious Affairs Sahibzada Mohammad Adnan Qadri told the conference that safety challenges of journalists “are the same that residents of tribal districts face which means everyone should work together to resolve the security challenges.”

“The purpose of this report is to understand how political mainstreaming of former tribal areas has impacted the tribal media and its practitioners. It addressed two questions: state of freedom of expression and safety of journalists,” Iqbal Khattak, executive director of Freedom Network told the meeting.

Khyber Union of Journalists president Nasir Hussain, Peshawar Press Club president Arshad Aziz, Tribal Union of Journalists president Qazi Fazlullah and PJSC provincial president Saiful Islam Saifi also addressed the conference.

“In 2006, the government wanted journalists to take measures for their safety. In 2014, journalists were losing sleep for want of peace. In 2023, they are back to square one. One or the other party to the conflict is unhappy with media in tribal areas,” the report said.

The report said that the merger did not strengthen media. It strengthened tribes, maliks or elders and warlords. The merger did not strengthen rule of law nor the media and its practitioners.

Return of militancy sparked “calls for peace and state suppressed freedom of expression not allowing media to report these calls,” the report said in a reference to undeclared official ban on media to report a citizens’ movement for fundamental rights.

“Space for media and journalism has shrunk drastically in the merged districts after resurgence of Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan,” the report underlined suggesting that political integration helped media little to free from state and non-state actors’ threatening behaviours.

Published in Dawn, June 27th, 2024