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Pak editor muzzled by paper under govt pressure

Banned from writing under her name in the newspaper she edits, Dr Maleeha Lodhi is determined to stay on and fight the 'authoritarian rule' of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharief.

''I'm not going to quit. I'll stay and fight,'' she says.

Lodhi is the editor of The News, a leading English language newspaper owned by Pakistan's largest Jang Group of Publications. ''Why should I leave, isn't that what they really want?'' she says in her office in Rawalpindi.

Although the order that she should refrain from writing for the 'moment' came from the management, she believes that it is the result of immense government pressure on the Jang Group to 'fall in line' or 'face the consequences'.

''After systematically weakening all power centres which could check his powers, Nawaz Sharief is now out to bring other sources of dissent to heel - the press and non-government organisations,'' says Dr Lodhi, who was Pakistan's ambassador to the United States from 1994 to 1997.

The feisty editor has never been in the good books of the Shariefs (the prime minister's brother Shahbaz is chief minister of Punjab province). During the prime minister's first tenure, she was charged with sedition, but she fought it out and the government had to withdraw all the charges against her.

''They (Shariefs) have a very personalised view of people. Since he (Nawaz Sharief) wants to rule unfettered, anybody who does not side with him is his enemy,'' she said.

Dr Lodhi is not the only journalist who has got into trouble for her anti-government views. Najam Sethi, editor of the prominent Lahore-based weekly The Friday Times was abducted and kept in custody for 25 days before he was released on June 3.

Although the government was forced to withdraw the treason charges against Dr Sethi, he is now fighting cases of tax evasion.

But Rahmat Shah Afridi, editor of the Peshawar-based Frontier Post, remains in prison. He has been charged with drug trafficking, while Hussain Haqqani, a successful columnist and an opposition party spokesperson, has been detained on corruption charges.

Sharief's critics say his government is intolerant of criticism. The crackdown on non-governmental organisations, including the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, and attacks on independent press follow a pattern.

In early June, newspapers reported that the government had decided to set up a special 'media cell' to probe 45 journalists viewed as anti-government. Dr Lodhi was on top of the list.

The government's chief accountability whip, Senator Saifur Rehman was quick to deny the report, and termed it the handiwork of the 'agents of political destability'.

Dr Lodhi, however, complains of constant harassment by government agencies. ''I am chased, my phones are bugged and you find white cars parked outside your house for surveillance. It's a sort of psychological warfare,'' she says.

In February this year, the government had asked the Jang Group to sack Dr Lodhi and some of her other outspoken colleagues. When they refused to comply, income tax fraud cases were slapped on the group, and newsprint supplies blocked.

But the resultant public outcry forced Islamabad to back- track ''The government's head-on (collision) with the group was so costly that they had to change tactics. Now they are going after individuals,'' says Dr Lodhi.

Under fire also are NGOs, particularly those who have opposed the government's 'Shariat bill', which seeks to Islamise the legal system and give the prime minister immense powers.

In May, some 2,000 groups in Punjab province and more than 200 in southern Sindh were banned by the federal and provincial governments (Sindh is ruled directly by Islamabad), and the government announced it would enact a law for NGOs.

Among those targeted were the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, Shirkat Gah, Aurat Foundation and Applied Socio-Economic Research whose names have been cropping up as 'enemies of the nation' in pro-government fora.

''Civil society is in a make or break situation,'' Dr Lodhi believes. ''This is a fight against rulers who represent the Pakistani version of the Taliban. They have a flawed view of civil society and are socially conservative about women.''

Though journalists unions have not come out to protest her silencing (because the editor has not informed them they say), M Ziauddin, resident editor of the Dawn wrote in her support recently. ''Hats off to Maleeha for putting up a silent but courageous fight,'' he wrote in his weekly column from Islamabad.

''Those who blame her for not protesting more strongly perhaps do not know that it would have suited the government just fine if she had left the paper in protest. That is exactly what the government has been trying to achieve all along,'' he added.

UNI

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