ISI: Voice on Tape is Hamid Mir
Editorial:The Hamid Mir affair
By Rashed Rahman
Hamid Mir, a prominent TV anchor, has seen fit to respond to a story carried by Daily Times (May 16, 2010, “Hamid Mir’s terrifying indiscretions”, plus a transcript of a purported telephone conversation between Mir and an unknown militant of the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan) with a vicious campaign against the publisher of the paper, Punjab Governor Salmaan Taseer. In his latest column in Jang (May 17, 2010, “Aasteen key saanp”), he has continued his canards against Mr Taseer, including implying he was an “aasteen ka saanp” (snake in the sleeve) of the PPP. While the language and tone of Mir’s campaign against Mr Taseer is deplorable, he also needs correction on a number of other counts.
DT’s story that has aroused the ire of Hamid Mir had been circulating on the web and in the new media for days before DT picked it up. The allegation in the story was that the above referred to a telephone conversation, if genuine, that showed Mir giving information on Khalid Khwaja that might have led to his execution on April 30 by the Asian Tigers extremist group who had captured him. Now that the story has been aired, Mr Mir, instead of becoming apoplectic and missing the point, should consider the following.
The publisher of DT has a track record of not interfering with the policy of the paper. It remains one of the few newspapers that adhere to the safeguarding of the institution of a professional editor and editorial autonomy. If Mr Mir has a bone to pick, it should be with the editor, not the publisher, and that too while adhering to civilised norms and language. Tilting at the publisher betrays some preconceived prejudice, if not depreciating and denigrating the editorial independence enjoyed by the paper’s editor.
In DT’s editorial “Shocking revelations” (May 17, 2010), we argued: “There should be a thorough investigation into the matter by the security agencies. It should first be ascertained whether it was actually Hamid Mir or an impersonator on the audiotape.” We did not pass judgment on the genuineness or otherwise of the audiotape, but left room for the possibility that it was a forgery, as Mir has subsequently claimed amidst his loud protestations of innocence. In an inadvertent admission, however, he says the audiotape is an amalgam of bits and pieces of other conversations (innocent journalistic exchanges, according to him). Even if this is conceded, there is sufficient in the ‘bits and pieces’ to arouse alarm. Surely Mr Mir should welcome the opportunity to clear his name if the tape is indeed a forgery. On the other hand, if it turns out to be genuine, Mir has a lot to answer for and the law should take its course. The country is in the middle of a life-or-death struggle against the homegrown jihadis who have declared war on the state. Journalists, who are engaged in an increasingly precarious and dangerous profession in conflict areas, may be required for professional reasons to keep lines of communication open with the ‘enemy’. However, this does not give anyone, journalist or not, room to transcend the law of the land or the ethics of his profession. If the tape is genuine and Mir did say the things about Khalid Khwaja that are on the tape, a prima facie case is made out for his arraignment on charges that could include being an accessory before the fact to the murder that followed, as well as in possible violation of the Army Act (applicable to civilians in times of war). The statement released by the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan denying the contents of the tape and trying to clear our intrepid anchor’s name has done more to muddy Hamid Mir’s case than anyone else could have. With friends like these...
Unlike Hamid Mir’s personalised diatribes since the storm broke around his head, which we do not wish to dignify by stooping to the same level, we advocate a thorough investigation to allow Hamid Mir a chance to prove his innocence or otherwise. Whichever way it goes, let the wheels of justice be set in motion to get to the bottom of a sordid and murky episode that reveals nothing more than the possible hidden links of the extremists at war with Pakistan with certain sections of our ‘free’ media. The turn from the pro-jihadi policy of old to open conflict and war against the cancer within our body politic that threatens the state may have left such ‘linked’ parts of the media nostalgic for the past ‘good times’ and desperate to see these enemies of a civilised democratic society succeed by hook or by crook. History, however, appears to have passed on and left these antediluvian warriors whistling in the wind. *
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Sunday, May 16, 2010 E-Mail this article to a friend Printer Friendly Version
Transcript of Hamid Mir’s conversation
Hamid Mir: Many bombings are being carried out.
Unidentified man: Let’s see. There will be more of them. There are some in the pipeline. What do they (government) say about the operation in Orakzai? Will they stop it or not?
HM: No, they say it would not be stopped, rather they say they will also start an operation in North Waziristan and 40,000 troops will leave in a couple of days.
UM: In North Waziristan?
HM: Yes.
UM: Do you have any report on Khalid Khawaja etc.
HM: They say Khalid Khawaja Saab is in custody of one Azam Afridi in Darrakhel.
UM: Yes, yes Tariq Afridi (correcting HM).
HM: They are in Tariq Afridi’s custody.
UM: OK.
HM: Yes.
UM: So, are they men of the government or ISI?
HM: Who?
UM: These, Khalid Khawaja and Colonel Imam.
HM: Khalid Khawaja, according to my opinion, is not an ISI man, rather he is a CIA agent, an American CIA agent and he has links with the Taliban leadership.
UM: Yes, he met with Hakimullah and others when he came here last time.
HM: I personally know that Khalid Khawaja has links not only with CIA but he is also a front man of Mansoor Ijaz who belongs to a very big international network of Qadiyanis. Once he came to me along with Mansoor, who had a briefcase with him, and Khalid Saab told me that Mansoor is a key representative of the US government, so arrange his meeting with Syed Salahuddin, who is a mujahideen leader, and he along with him would resolve the Kashmir issue.
UM: All right.
HM: But I asked him what charm or magic lamp does he posses for the resolution of the Kashmir dispute. He said he had links with the Indian government and (Atal Bihari) Vajpayee Jee, which surprised me. I didn’t arrange the meeting, but I asked Mr Salahuddin who said Khalid Khawaja is sending messages that you should directly talk to India and the US on the issue and exclude Pakistan from it.
UM: All right, all right.
HM: After that, Mansoor Ijaz also asked me: Are you with us or not? I said,
“I am not with you.” Then he conspired against me and got me sacked from the Daily Ausaf when I was its editor. So, I think Khalid Khawaja not only has links with the CIA but he is also an agent of the Qadiyanis, and I am very sad that he used to go to the Tribal Areas and meet leaders there.
UM: But now, I think, the Taliban have caught him and have demanded $10 million for the journalist.
HM: Do you know what part his (Khalid Khawaja’s) wife played in Lal Masjid?
UM: No, but it was something negative.
HM: It was that Maulana Abdul Rashid Ghazi Saab – may Allah bless him with a place in heavens. What he told me in his last days was, do you know that he did not completely agree with Maulana Aziz.
UM: Yes, yes.
HM: Mr Abdul Rashid Ghazi wanted to save the students inside the mosque and for that he showed flexibility and said, “I am ready to surrender on the condition that those who are with me will not be arrested and will be released.”
But Khalid Khawaja’s wife was pressurised so much by Ume Hassaan that Maulana Abdul Aziz, without asking his brother, came out in a burqa, and Khalid Khawaja was involved in it (call disconnected).
UM: Assalam-o-Alaikum!
HM: Yes,
UM: The call got disconnected.
HM: Ok.
UM: So, what were you saying about his wife?
HM: Yes, I was telling you that his wife pressurised him so much that Ghazi Saab said, “She says we have to fight, just fight for martyrdom.” After that Mr Khalid Khawaja came out of the mosque and his wife also fled, Khalid Khawaja’s wife.
UM: Yes, we heard that she had fled after that.
HM: Yes, she ran away and then Maulana Abdul Aziz also came out in the burqa.
UM: I think, he insisted for that.
HM:
Yes, he had done all this. After that Maulana Abdul Aziz was arrested and Mr Abdul Rashid Ghazi telephoned me and said, “Now, I don’t have any option. Now, my family and ulema have been defamed as my brother was arrested in a burqa and presented on Pakistan Television. This is a large stain which can only be removed with my blood.” So, he lived up to his words and sacrificed. So, Khalid Khawaja and his wife, anyone may know or not, they will have to answer before Allah Almighty.
UM: He, recently, came here and met my companions. He was saying, “You can work in Pakistan as we say, if you want to. I can arrange your ‘setting’ with an admiral in Mianwali. So, you should not burn US containers in Pakistan, you can rob them and sell them to a person recommended by us.” He was saying, “We would provide you everything for carrying out activities in Pakistan.”
HM:
Do whatever you want to with the containers, burn them or rob them, I have nothing to do with it. But ask him what relationship he has with Mansoor Ijaz and William Casey? William Casey was the chief of CIA.
UM: Right, right.
HM:
He (Khawaja) himself has confessed in front me that he had links with William Casey. Ok! Leave William, ask him about the Qadiyanis, because I personally believe that Qadiyanis are worse than infidels, what kind of links does he have with Qadiyanis? What relationship does he have with Mansoor Ijaz? Why does he use his money? Why does he go everywhere with him when he comes to Pakistan? Why does he bring him to the mujahideen?
UM: Yes, he has a son in al Qaeda.
HM: Yes, his son would also be a spy like him.
UM: Yes, I talked to the shaikhs about him. They said they were keeping him on the sidelines.
HM: His biggest betrayal to me was that there was a mujahid, Abdul Rehman Al Canady.
UM: Yes, there was one Canady.
HM:
He was martyred in North Waziristan. He came to me with Canady’s wife and a daughter, saying Canady’s son, Karim, is at Rawalpindi’s CMH and is injured and the army had arrested him. He asked me to arrange a meeting between the injured and his mother. I said this is very difficult for me and I can’t do this because already they are all against me. But, he said all that you need to do is to arrange a meeting between a mother and her son. So, I arranged it with a lot of difficulties and sent the woman to Rawalpindi CMH, but when she reached there she took a camera out of her burqa and asked her son to record a message that he is innocent, has no links with anyone and has been kept here illegally. She was arrested there because a nurse saw her and seized the camera from her. But I was held responsible for all of it as they told me that I had sent this woman. It was revealed after her arrest that the woman had a Canadian passport and had visited Canada two months ago. After that I faced a lot of difficulties. The Canadian government released the woman and her daughter and then she went back to Canada. In Toronto, she held a press conference and admitted that she worked for the CIA. Now Khalid Khawaja has a long beard and his wife wears a full veil so people like us, who are involved in worldly affairs and have committed sins, believe that if we will help them, we might be forgotten for our sins. When these kinds of people betray us, we lose confidence on the religion itself.
UM: Absolutely, neither we are wrong nor is the army, but people like him have created the difficulties.
HM: However, if he is somewhere, ask him at least that you used the name of Abdul Rehman Canady, you worked with Mansoor Ijaz, you have worked William Casey. And there is one Javaid Ibrahim Piracha, who has a very big seminary in Kohat.
UM: Yes, yes.
HM: You all know the services of Piracha Saab. So, he fraudulently invited Piracha Saab in Islamabad and told him he wanted to arrange his meeting with a prominent personality. He took him to the US deputy foreign minister at Serena Hotel and said, “He is Mr Piracha and he can arrange your talks with the al Qaeda and Taliban.” Piracha Saab is a well-educated person. I observed that he was betrayed and came out of the room and escaped from there. Then he called me and said, “You were right about him (Khalid Khawaja).”
UM: Right, right. He went to him last time.
HM: Yes, Piracha Saab told me about that. He said, “He came to me and Col Imam was also here and told Col Imam that don’t go anywhere with this guy.” He (Piracha) said, “What can I do if he comes here and I can’t force him out of my house, but you don’t go anywhere with him.” Mr Piracha said Col Imam didn’t want to go with Khalid Khawaja, but he forced him to go with him.
UM: Right, maybe to use as human shield. But Shah Abdul Aziz, that MNA of Kirk, is supporting him a lot. He was meeting everyone here and asking for his release.
HM: He would have fooled Shah Abdul Aziz.
UM: Yes, he was asking people to release him and said you may keep the journalist, whose ransom will be paid to you by him.
HM: Ok! His release depends on them who have kept him, but convey them these three questions that what is your link with Mansoor Ijaz, whose father fled with the atomic secrets of Pakistan.
Mansoor Ijaz’s father was an atomic scientist and he fled to the US with the atomic secrets of Pakistan. Once he (Ijaz) offered Benazir Bhutto a quid pro quo deal in 1995 that all the debts of the country will be forgiven, if she recognised Israel. That means he was also an agent of Israel.
UM: Yes, he used to ask my companions to work in Pakistan “as we say”. Actually, the
killings of brigadiers in Rawalpindi might have been arranged by him,I think.
HM: It might be possible, but I have been watching this guy for the last 13 or 14 years and he is a suspected man.
UM: OK. Inshallah, I will meet Hakimullah in two or three days and talk to him about all this.
HM: All right
UM: Thank you so much.
HM: Assalam-o-Alaikum!
UM: Assalam-o-Alaikum!
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Submitted by Dan Qayyum on May 20, 2010 – 5:55 am21 Comments
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Report says tape of conversation between Hamid Mir and Taliban militant is original
BBC says Jang Group is also questioning its TV anchor
LAHORE: Intelligence agencies, including the Inter-Services Intelligence have presented an investigation report to Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani regarding an audiotape of the telephonic conversation between TV anchor Hamid Mir and an unidentified Taliban militant, a private TV channel reported on Wednesday.
Quoting reliable sources, the channel said the report submitted by three intelligence agencies confirmed the authenticity of the audio clip after a detailed investigation.
Original: “The conversation between Hamid Mir and the Taliban militant is original and has been proved by the audiotape,” the report said. Mir is currently working as Islamabad Executive Editor for Geo News channel.
According to BBC Urdu, the Jang Group has set up an investigation committee and has announced the conducting of an impartial investigation in this regard.
Mir, who finds himself in the midst of a raging debate on the issue of journalistic ethics, has described the taped conversation “doctored” and “concocted”.
Osama Khalid, son of Khalid Khawaja, rejected Mir’s claims, saying the audiotape was original and he would prove it in court.
Talking to the BBC Urdu, Khalid said the unidentified Taliban in the audiotape was Usman Punjabi who used an alias of Muhammad Omar while talking to various journalists.
“Hamid Mir instigated the militants to murder my father,” he said, adding he would soon register a case against Mir for murdering his father.
He also requested the Supreme Court Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry to take suo motu notice of the incident, and demanded a judicial inquiry into the matter, and asked journalists to kick the “black sheep” out of the profession.
The audio clip had Mir divulging dirt on Khawaja, ostensibly to the Taliban militant who was to cross examine the former ISI official. The person on the other end asks Mir for information on Khalid Khawaja. Mir goes on to link Khawaja to the CIA, an international network of Qadianis and an American named Mansur Ejaz. daily times monitor
Separately, Senator Faisal Raza Abidi said the government had verified the authenticity of the voices on the audio tape from intelligence agencies. He said the audio clipping proved Hamid Mir’s links with the Taliban.
Listen to Audio / Read Transcript Of Hamid Mir Taped Phone Call
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The Taliban come to Hamid Mir’s aid
This is a press release from the Taliban Media Centre commenting on the fake audio tape issued by some secret agency of Pakistan. We are actively condumn the reliability of this tape since there was no conversatin like that in between us and Mr Hamid Mir. Althoug we have talked with many different persons of media. It is very often and there is no doubt that they are not involved with us. This is seems to be a conspiracy to destroy the reputation of Mujahideen and the brave people of this country who want to bring truth in front while revealing the dark faces of this nation.
Suppose, this audion tape can be accepted as a true one than it is also demanded that the video tapes of Shery Rehman, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari and Salman Taseer should also be treated as the same degree. Since sexy pictures of Salman Taseer’s daughter and sons are on media so can any one tell the nation how a loose characterd person can be a governor of a province. What action should government agencies took? Why they are delaying?
Unfortunately the secret agenceis of Pakistan are directly opposing the nations benefits and try to sabotash the well repudiated personalities and institutions for the greater interst of their own.
(Unedited version )
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VIEW: The execution of an ISI agent –Ishtiaq Ahmed
It must be an embarrassment for SAARC that recently conferred an award on Hamid Mir for conscientious journalism. That the same individual networks with two of the most bloodthirsty terrorist organizations in the world is an interesting case of duplicity
A controversy is raging in Pakistan these days over the events that led to the execution on April 30, 2010 of a former ISI agent, Khalid Khawaja by a hitherto unknown group called the Asian Tigers. He was found dead in Miranshah, North Waziristan on April 30, 2010 — a month after being kidnapped by the Asian Tigers. He had gone there along with the legendary Colonel Imam (Sultan Amir Tarar) and a Pakistani-origin UK journalist Saad Qureshi who was making a documentary on the life of Colonel Imam. Khalid Khawaja’s body was found riddled with bullets. A written note left by the executioners stated that such was the fate of all agents of the US.
Khalid Khawaja was a squadron leader in the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) before he changed career to become an ISI officer. He was very close to Osama bin Laden. Apparently he was dismissed from the ISI for his outspoken views on jihad and in support of al Qaeda.
Some years ago, I saw him on an international television network, telling the interviewer something like this: ‘You value life, we consider worldly existence a transition so how can you fight with us?’ These were probably not the exact words he used but the message he wanted to convey was precisely what I have said: to deride the secularised western world’s emphasis on the importance of life on this earth while Khalid Khawaja claimed that he subscribed to a weltanschauung (mystical contemplation ) that valued life after death. He was of course presenting the jihadist point of view, which has in recent years produced hundreds of suicide bombers who while destroying thousands of lives have themselves put an end to theirs in the hope of milk and honey and doe-eyed damsels awaiting them.
On that occasion I could not help noticing the irony in Khalid Khawaja’s derision of life on earth: he had himself succeeded in growing middle-aged and some white hair in his beard could also be seen. He had not volunteered to become a suicide bomber, but had probably been very successful and satisfied in snuffing out the lives of many others. Now of course he has been executed by some group who found him to have been a CIA agent, a Qadiyani and all that. His wife, however, claims that he is a shaheed (martyr) and therefore already in paradise. I find all such arguments arbitrary and meaningless.
What is at stake is the fundamental question: should one not value life on this earth and give every person an opportunity to live his life in as fulfilling a manner as possible? It is possible that there is some existence even after death but I do not know of any culture where taking life is celebrated. So, the comparison between those who value life and those who value an existence after death is fundamentally a flawed one because of the ‘two states of being’, only one is confirmed and in all cultures when someone dies those who love or care for that person are struck with grief.
Khalid Khawaja’s son Osama Khalid has decided to go to court to find out who was responsible for the execution of his father. That is a perfectly understandable response of a son devastated by the death of his father. Nobody would give him the love and affection that his father could. That is why I believe Khalid Khawaja was incontrovertibly in error for making fun of those who value life.
The second question is: who released the tape that shows Hamid Mir allegedly telling a Taliban — most certainly a Punjabi because of the accent — that Khalid Khawaja was an American agent and a Qadiyani? There is little doubt in my mind that the tape is genuine. Hamid Mir is known for his links with the Taliban and al Qaeda. His attempts to deny that he had said all that the people hear him say, makes him appear pathetic.
However, there must be someone willing to betray Hamid Mir, and the question is why? Is it because recently Hamid Mir made some very uncharacteristic statements condemning the genocide in Bangladesh, and that may have earned him the ire of those who think what we did in Bangladesh was justified and therefore Hamid Mir should have kept his mouth shut? Perhaps like Khalid Khawaja even Hamid Mir has become a liability and is therefore expendable.
It would be good if Hamid Mir’s alleged complicity in the murder of Khalid Khawaja is properly investigated. It must be an embarrassment for SAARC that recently conferred an award on Hamid Mir for conscientious journalism. That the same individual networks with two of the most bloodthirsty terrorist organisations in the world — al Qaeda and the Taliban — is an interesting case of duplicity.
Some years ago, I met a young man at a party in Lahore who turned out to be the son of a hero of the 1965 War. I felt obliged to say some words of praise for his father. That brought a smile to the young man’s face. As soon as I moved into another circle at the party, somebody who had overheard me commented with the usual Punjabi flare for abuse that the fellow I was being so nice to was involved in bringing nuclear waste from the West and dumping it in Pakistan. If true, that for me was the most unpatriotic thing to do and the fact that the son of a war hero was making quick bucks out of it showed that we as a nation are for sale or rent rather easily.
When did all this start happening? It is impossible to put a date on it. All I know is that unlike India where a freedom struggle went on for a long time before freedom was granted, we got Pakistan because the British believed Pakistan would be the more reliable ally willing to provide the bases needed to patrol the Persian Gulf and to contain the Soviet Union. All this started some years before we gained independence. That of course was not the jazba (feelings) of the masses who believed that Pakistan will be their liberation from want and hunger.
Ishtiaq Ahmed is a Visiting Research Professor at the Institute of South Asian Studies (ISAS) and the South Asian Studies Programme at the National University of Singapore. He is also Professor Emeritus of Political Science at Stockholm University. He has published extensively on South Asian politics. At ISAS, he is currently working on a book, Is Pakistan a Garrison State? He can be reached at isasia@nus.edu.sg
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Thursday, May 27, 2010
COMMENT: Embedded with the Taliban? –Dr Mohammad Taqi
Many in the Pakistani media used the 2007-2009 lawyers’ movement in Pakistan as an ablution ritual to distance themselves from their fundamentalist past and created a centrist illusion around themselves
“Newspapermen commit murder every day and week and go unpunished. Not that they escape judgment when they murder the King’s English; for that crime they are duly condemned. But day in and day out, they ‘kill stories’ with impunity. Or without criticism they may even ‘bury’ a story that is ‘alive’...” — Dorothy Colburn, ‘Newspaper Nomenclature’, February 1927
A couple of weeks ago an audio
clip purported to be a conversation between a Pakistani media personality and an alleged Taliban leader remained in circulation for days on the Internet. While the Daily Times on May 16, 2010 reported the story and Declan Walsh’s reiteration of it the following day in the British paper The Guardian certainly saved the story on and of this tape from being killed, had it not been for the Daily Times (DT) editorial ‘Shocking revelations’ on May 17, 2010, this story might just have been buried alive.
In an era where massively slanted opinion-based articles are passed around as front-page news leads and opinionated columnists masquerade (A costume party at which masks are worn; a masked ball. Also called masque.
A costume for such a party or ball.) as news reporters, this paper did a reasonably good job of confining its opinion to the daily’s editorial. The editorial still drew criticism for not getting the other side of the story. However, anyone remotely familiar with the workings of an editorial board would attest to the timely news angle of that particular piece, an objective explanation of the issue and the professional manner of writing that did cover both sides of the story. No doubt that a personality was discussed in the piece, but the paper is under no obligation to solicit that person’s point of view on the material that exists in the public domain.
Indeed this lucid and incisive editorial highlighted several issues and has stirred a serious debate in the media, by the media and for the media. However, the readers and viewers, who, according to the New York Times, are the real employers of the media, are watching very closely, as the media limelight, in this case rather unwanted by some, falls on one of its own.
Over the last 30 years, death has grown in the killing fields of Afghanistan and Pakistan for several journalists like Mansoor Khan of The Muslim and Hayatullah Khan, while many others have reaped steep rewards. The newsgathering conduct of the journalists involved in reporting the Afghan conflict and its spillover into Pakistan, has largely escaped scrutiny.
The rather infamous relationship of embedded journalists with the Western, especially the US, forces in Iraq and Afghanistan has been a subject of serious debate and writing. However, little is known about the relationships of the journalists, covering the other side of the conflict — especially the Taliban — with their sources.
Since Dan Rather dressed up as a mujahideen fighter in 1980, journalists from around the world have gone to various lengths to cultivate their sources and to report on the Pak-Afghan theatre. The recent audiotape controversy raises the question about whether there are journalists who are actually embedded with the Taliban.
In the news business, cultivating a source is an essential skill, bordering on being an art. However, a practitioner of this art must demonstrate to the fullest a sound judgment, self-discipline and professional and personal integrity to avoid even the shadow of impropriety. A short measure of any of these essentials could result in an actual or apparent partiality on the part of the newsperson.
The relationship with the source, like any other human interaction, is like two-way traffic. More likely than not, the source is eager to garner the newsperson’s goodwill for motives which could be altruistic or ulterior. Planted stories and slanted reports can happen — with or without the conscious participation of media persons. There is no reason to believe that most newsmen are not doing their job honestly.
However, many in the Pakistani media used the 2007-2009 lawyers’ movement in Pakistan as an ablution ritual to distance themselves from their fundamentalist past and created a centrist illusion around themselves. Those who were known for their exclusive interviews with jihadist leaders or for deriding secular-nationalist leaders through the state-owned Pakistan Television re-marketed themselves — with great success — as the face of the modern and ‘liberated’ Pakistani media. Simply tracking the careers of these anchors to some 20 years back, however, may swiftly flay their new facade.
If some of these same television talk shows are anything to go by, the media person — whose voice allegedly is on the tape in question — has been dropped like a hot potato by his own colleagues. Some, whose coworkers have used illegal phone tapping to discredit an Urdu journalist in the not-so-distant past, spent no time in distancing themselves from the media personality impugned in the tape affair.
It is said that the media is a mirror that reflects the society it serves. And opportunism not being an unknown commodity in our society, it is imperative to keep a close eye on how the present debate evolves. When the veracity of the impugned tape is confirmed, it would only go to show that this is a seminal event, which points to an affliction that might be rampant in a class of journalists who grew up on a steady diet of the proviso suppressio veri, suggestio falsi (suppression of the truth is the suggestion of falsehood) in the Zia era.
The late C P Scott of The Guardian had aptly noted that, “A newspaper’s primary office is the gathering of news. At the peril of its soul, it must see that the supply is not tainted.” There is little doubt that the supply chain of many media outlets is tainted, but its extent remains to be determined.
While the law must take its course in the audiotape matter, the DT editorial has put the Pakistani media houses on the spot about their newsgathering operations; they owe it to the public to come clean.
Dr Mohammad Taqi teaches and practices medicine at the University of Florida and contributes to the think-tanks www.politact.com and Aryana Institute. He can be contacted at mazdaki@me.com
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