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THE
ROVING EYE
Rough justice in
Pakistan
By Pepe Escobar
PARIS - Khawar Mehdi Rizvi is a Pakistani
journalist. For almost a month he has been languishing -
and most probably being tortured - in a Pakistani jail
or safehouse somewhere in Pakistan. Nobody knows where
he is. The co-director of the Federal Investigation
Agency - which deals with white-collar crimes and
passport and visa matters - has told Karachi's High
Court that he has no idea about Khawar Mehdi's fate.
Sources tell Asia Times Online that Khawar Mehdi may in
fact be in the clutches of hardline sectors of the
Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), the Pakistani
intelligence services.
Khawar Mehdi was first
detained, along with two French journalists, Marc
Epstein and Jean-Paul Guilloteau, working for the French
weekly L'Express, on December 14, near the small
industrial city of Hub, a 45-minute drive from Karachi
in Balochistan province. The accusation was "violation
of visa restrictions" - they had broken the law by
traveling to Quetta, in Balochistan province, and then
to the volatile Pakistan-Afghanistan border. Since early
2003, every Pakistani press visa contains a handwritten
note: "Valid only for Karachi, Islamabad and Lahore."
On December 16, police formally arrested the two
French journalists in their Karachi hotel. This was also
the last day that Epstein, Guilloteau or anybody for
that matter saw Khawar Mehdi. Like the victims of the
Chilean and Argentine military juntas in the 1970s,
Khawar Mehdi became a "disappeared".
The French
journalists are finally back in Paris, thanks to the
strenuous efforts of French diplomacy, as Epstein
recognizes. After pleading guilty to the charge of
visa-restriction violation, they were fined and
sentenced to six months' imprisonment. But the judge
suspended the sentence, allowing their lawyer to file an
appeal. High-level French diplomatic pressure paid off,
and they were finally released early this week.
Khawar Mehdi, on the other hand, has been tried
in absentia by PTV - Pakistani Television. In a December
24 news report, the state network accused the two French
journalists of fabricating a video of a fake Taliban
training camp, with the help of Khawar Mehdi. According
to the news-report transcript by Reuters, "Abdullah
Shakir, a Pakistani tribesman, claims he had
impersonated a Taliban commander in a video allegedly
prepared by two French journalists with the help of
Pakistani accomplices". In the report, Shakir says, in
Urdu: "Khawar [Mehdi] Rizvi told me: 'You come with us
to Afghanistan. We will give you US$50 a day. Two French
persons are coming with us. We are going to make a film
there.'"
Epstein, a seasoned reporter, says he
interviewed Abdullah Shakir for almost seven hours, and
he struck him as a genuine Taliban commander, although
not very high up in the hierarchy. Shakir unveiled a
number of Taliban operations in great detail. He lives
in Rawalpindi, near Islamabad, and operates in the
tribal areas. There's nothing suspicious about it: the
overwhelming majority of Taliban graduated from
Pakistani madrassas - in Karachi or in Haqqania,
near Peshawar - and commanders' families live not in
Afghanistan but in Peshawar, Karachi and Rawalpindi.
On December 9, Shakir actually traveled from
Islamabad to Quetta on the same plane with Khawar Mehdi
and the two French journalists. The next day they were
all driven to the Pakistani-Afghan border. Epstein had a
global-positioning satellite - later confiscated by
Pakistani police, along with his laptop, phones, and
notebook and Guilloteau's photo equipment - but he did
not check at the time on which side of the border he
was. The Pak-Afghan border, anyway, is totally porous.
According to PTV's story, the whole setup was
nothing but a fake movie: "Shakir said he was shown as a
Taliban commander who was giving military training to
Taliban in Pakistan, and giving an interview on his
activities inside Afghanistan. However, he confessed
that he was not aware that the documentary was being
shot inside Pakistan."
Although two cameras were
on the scene, one with Khawar Mehdi and the other with
Epstein, there was no documentary - as PTV claims.
Epstein is adamant that Khawar Mehdi "never held the
camera. He didn't film anything. For the first time in
my career myself, a print reporter, shot a few scenes,
to use them later if they were any good. Moreover, the
word 'Pakistan' is never pronounced in these images, and
is not to be found anywhere in my notebook."
When they were arrested, the French journalists
were charged with a visa violation. But later, says
Epstein, "we were also accused of having tried to
fabricate a fake film designed to soil Pakistan's image.
We were never indicted, though." The fake film was
actually fabricated by Pakistani Television, using the
images shot by Epstein: the tape on Khawar's camera was
blank because he didn't shoot anything. Shakir, the
alleged Taliban commander, saved his skin by telling a
lie. And the indictment fell on Khawar Mehdi.
Any journalist familiar with the Pakistani beat
- one of the most complex and dangerous in the world -
has identified the Khawar Mehdi affair for what it is: a
stark message. The Musharraf government, some hardline
ISI sectors, or both are warning foreign journalists as
well as Pakistani journalists working with foreigners:
you are definitely not welcome if you insist on
investigating links between the Taliban and the ISI,
inside or outside the tribal areas or on any side of the
Pakistan-Afghan border.
Khawar Mehdi remains
"disappeared" in a black hole, and even President
General Pervez Musharraf seems not to know what's going
on in his own back yard. Musharraf's own remarks have
also been far from helpful, when he insinuated on PTV
that Khawar Mehdi arranged this film only for the money.
Khawar Mehdi has worked for the Chicago Tribune,
the New York Times, Le Monde, Liberation, French
Television and this Asia Times Online correspondent,
among others. Of course he was paid, but it was more a
question of practicing good, investigative, independent
journalism. It is almost essential for any foreign
journalist in Pakistan to have a good fixer who
inevitably becomes a friend. Khawar Mehdi is a prince
among Pakistani fixers, as well as "a great journalist",
as Epstein and colleagues can attest. A support
committee has been set up in Paris, with active help by
the widely respected journalist body Reporters Without
Borders. Amnesty International is also involved.
Early next week, the Sind High Court will hear
an appeal filed by Khawar Mehdi's brother for the
clarification of his legal status, which in the best
possible case might lead to his release from illegal
detention and his appearance in a court of law.
Meanwhile, double standards apply. High pressure
from France - a crucial player on the world stage - led
to both French journalists being released. But Khawar
Mehdi cannot count on his own government to get a fair
hearing in his own country.
(Copyright 2004 Asia
Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact content@atimes.com for
information on our sales and syndication policies.)
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