KARACHI, Sept 17: Those planning to read the recently published version of respected journalist Zamir Niazi’s trailblazing account of the state of press freedom in Pakistan might have to wait for the next edition. In its latest form, Press in Chains leaves out some important periods of repression in the history of the Pakistani press.

The book’s second edition has been published by Oxford University Press six years after the death of Mr Niazi, who revised it during the last days of his life at a time when he was seriously ill.

Although the introduction to this edition claims it is “an expanded, revised and updated version of the original book,” leafing through its pages is astonishing for those who have read the earlier version.

Two key chapters, Age of Iconoclasm and Dark Tunnel, are missing. The first records the repression of the press at the hands of former prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and the second discusses / chronicles the anti-press actions of the Gen Ziaul Haq regime, two of the most damaging periods for press freedom in Pakistan.

Gone are accounts of the closures of a large number of newspapers, the imprisonment of journalists and other restrictions imposed on the press from 1971 to 1977, and of the arrests and flogging of journalists, censorship, and newspaper closures during the Zia regime.

Ameena Saiyid, the OUP director, denies that there was pressure from any quarter to omit the section on the Bhutto era or that the publishing house has made an error in leaving out the chapters.

“It is not our fault. The family provided us the manuscript — it was not a proper manuscript, but rather a number of documents — and we published what we got. It’s possible that Niazi Sahib did not want to include these chapters in the revised version,” she says.

This does not, however, seem plausible given Mr Niazi’s preface to the first edition, which forms part of the revised edition as well. Since 1965 he had been meticulously collecting data on the repression of the press by various governments.

“In the early days of the first People’s Martial Law, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto … did not leave the press to its own devices,” he wrote in the preface. “It was then that the idea of compiling this book started haunting the mind of the writer.” But given events during subsequent years, he “decided to cover the entire span from 1947 to the Zia regime.”

Zubeida Mustafa, the editor of the revised version, said in an e-mail reply from Canada that “the manuscript I received from the publisher …did not have the Bhutto chapter … which OUP did not receive either. You would recall that the book was published six years after Zamir Sahib’s death and he did not leave the manuscript in a finished form ready for the publisher. So I cannot solve the mystery of the missing chapter.

“But you will be pleased to know that OUP has decided with the agreement of the family to include the missing Bhutto chapter in a new impression to be published soon,” she added.

Ms Saiyid is unwilling to withdraw the current edition from the market as “it would cause a huge loss” and says that OUP will include the missing chapters in the next edition.

Haris Zamir, Mr Niazi’s son, feels OUP should withdraw the copies that have already reached the market. According to him, the publisher and the editor should have compared the manuscript they received with the first edition and included the missing chapters.

“Niazi Sahib was taking pains even during his illness to revise the book. Then his condition worsened and he died,” Mr Zamir explains. “Otherwise he would have revised the whole book.”

Without these chapters, he adds, the current generation of readers will be deprived of an account of two crucial periods in the history of the Pakistani press.