Pakistani editor Najam Sethi, repeatedly jailed under various regimes, received a prestigious press freedom award yesterday for his work in the face of constant death threats.
Sethi, editor-in-chief of the Friday Times and Daily Times in Pakistan, accepted the 2009 Golden Pen of Freedom from the World Association of Newspapers (WAN), warning that extremists now posed as great a threat to press freedoms as repressive governments.
Speaking at the WAN’s annual conference in Hyderabad, Sethi said the Taliban had prevented the sale of his newspapers in areas under their control and had placed him on a hit-list.
“My family live in a constant state of siege, guarded by eight police commandos around the clock,” Sethi said.
Meanwhile, a critic of Pakistan’s army and spy agencies wrote yesterday that a gunman opened fire on his house in an attack he alleged was linked to the country’s powerful security establishment.
Kamran Shafi wrote of he attack his column in the Dawn newspaper. He and his family were not injured in the incident in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, on Friday.
Shafi is a prominent critic of the military and its influence over the country’s weak civilian leadership. The issue has been in the spotlight recently amid rising pressure on Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari from within the military.
Shafi said a gunman fired six times at his house before collecting the bullet casings and fleeing. The next day, he received a call from a woman who said what happened was a “trailer” and that the complete movie would be shown soon.
“One does not spit in the plate one eats from,” she allegedly said.
RSS