Lund University Centre for East and South-East Asian Studies Master’s Program in Asian Studies South Asia Track Spring Semester 2010

COVERING CONFLICT: SAFETY AND TRAUMATIC STRESS AMONG

JOURNALISTS IN PAKISTAN & AFGHANISTAN

Author: Sean Nevins Supervisor: Catarina Kinnvall

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ABSTRACT

Media personnel in Pakistan are under threat from numerous factors, including psychological issues, as relates to the prevalence of posttraumatic stress syndrome (PTSD) and other psychosomatic problems within the media industry, threats presented by the Pakistani state, physical violence from state and non-state actors, and militants’ media propaganda. While dangers to the physical safety of conflict journalists have been well documented by various media groups, the psychological aspects of their well-being has largely been neglected and/or ignored. The purpose of this study was to examine how conflict and war journalists in Pakistan deal with threats encountered in their work in light of a growing amount of literature that validates feelings of emotional stress and disorder among reporters that cover conflict, and an obligation to address their psychological needs more directly. It found that a framework based in social psychology provided a means by which to understand the motivations of conflict journalists and why those who do encounter traumatic stress, related to their work, often do not seek help. Further, a conceptual framework based in security studies provided a practical means for understanding how to effectively advocate for the physical and psychological safety of journalists in Pakistan.

KEYWORDS:

Afghanistan, Afpak, Al Qaeda, Communication Studies, Conflict Studies, Critical Studies, Identity Construction, India, Iran, International Relations, Journalism, Media Studies, Pakistan, Political Psychology, Political Science, Security Studies, Social Psychology, South Asia, Taliban, Terrorism, United States, War

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Table  of  Contents  

1.  INTRODUCTION.................................................................................................. 3  Research  Problem  &  Aims  of  Thesis...........................................................................................................3  Purpose  &  Research  Questions.....................................................................................................................4  Purpose....................................................................................................................................................................4  Research  Question ..............................................................................................................................................4  Sub  Questions........................................................................................................................................................4  

Method  &  Selection............................................................................................................................................5  Methodology  (Design):  Case  Study  (Non-­Experimental) ..................................................................5  Interviews...............................................................................................................................................................5  Participants ...........................................................................................................................................................7  

Disposition.............................................................................................................................................................9  

2.  Empirical  Context  (Literature  Review):  Threats  faced  by  Journalists  &  Media  in  Pakistan................................................................................................................. 9  Psychological  Threats.......................................................................................................................................9  Historical  Context:  The  Press,  The  State  &  Censorship................................................................... 12  Physical  Threats............................................................................................................................................... 15  Threats  from  Propaganda:  Militants’  Media  &  State  Identity ...................................................... 19  

3.  Interviews.........................................................................................................22  Themes................................................................................................................................................................. 22  Trauma.................................................................................................................................................................22  Lack  of  Support.................................................................................................................................................24  Politics...................................................................................................................................................................25  Sympathy .............................................................................................................................................................26  Courage ................................................................................................................................................................27  Duty........................................................................................................................................................................28  

Lessons  Learned .............................................................................................................................................. 30  

4.  Theoretical  Discussion.......................................................................................31  Social  Psychology  &  Security...................................................................................................................... 31  The  Psychology  of  War  &  Conflict  Journalists:  A  Socio-­Psychological  Framework ............32  The  Securitisation  of  Media  and  its  Personnel  in  Pakistan:  A  Security  Framework ..........37  

5.  Conclusion ........................................................................................................42  

Bibliography .........................................................................................................44  

Appendix  1 ...........................................................................................................49  Interview  Questions  (Hironobu  Kubota) .............................................................................................. 49  

Appendix  2 ...........................................................................................................50  Interview  Questions  (Kamal  Hyder,  Munawer  Azeem,  Tahir  Khan  &  Journalist  X) ........... 50  

Appendix  3 ...........................................................................................................51  Interview  Questions  (Zahir  Shah  Sherazi) ........................................................................................... 51  

Appendix  4 ...........................................................................................................52  Interview  Transcription ............................................................................................................................... 52  Hironobu  Kubota  (freelance)  16  March  2010.....................................................................................52  Kamal  Hyder  (Al  Jazeera)  5  April  2010 .................................................................................................59  Munawer  Azeem  (Dawn)  7  April  2010...................................................................................................67  Tahir  Khan  (NNI)  10  April  2010 ...............................................................................................................70  Journalist  X  (Baluchistan)  12  April  2010  (requested  that  I  don’t  use  his  name).................78  Zahir  Shah  Sherazi  (Dawn):  21  April  2010 ..........................................................................................82  

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1.  INTRODUCTION  

Research  Problem  &  Aims  of  Thesis  Journalists that cover conflict are mythologized in the public minds eye as

untouchable, unattached, intrepid stalwarts who are able to walk in and out of conflict

and war situations unscathed. They are seen to be somehow removed from the chaos

that surrounds them, whether they appear along the border of Afghanistan and

Pakistan, the Congo, or the flooded plains of Iowa. This myth is prevalent within the

media industry as well and even perpetuated by it, by journalists and editors that view

themselves and their colleagues as stoic information-gatherers, or a breed of

individual that can go un-fazed by what would normally be considered traumatic.

However, the reality tells a different story. Journalists, particularly conflict and war

journalists, are subject to a myriad of psychological stressors and intimidating

obstacles in their work. In Pakistan (the focus of this study) and Afghanistan, conflict

journalists face death, murder, threats, closure of publications due to threats,

censorship, restrictive media laws, propaganda, and psychological disorders, such as

post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression and alcoholism (CPJ; Feinstein

2003; IFJ 2009; IMS 2009; Iqbal 2010; PIPS 2010; PPF 2009; Press Reference 2009).

Despite a growing body of literature within the psychological community that

bears witness to the prevalence of psychological stress amongst journalists that cover

conflict and war, and a maturing discourse within organisations fighting for media

rights and protections, the news industry all over the world still has a long way to go,

first in recognising trauma as a legitimate concern, and second in instituting change

through newsroom ethos and practice. Developing nations, especially those

experiencing their own conflicts – such as Pakistan and Afghanistan – face an even

greater challenge with regards to the protection of journalists’ physical and mental

states of well-being. The majority of national and international media support

organisations which aim to advocate for the support and protection of journalists in

Pakistan have failed to address issues related to psychological support for media

professionals (CPJ; Feinstein 2003; IFJ 2009; IMS 2009; Iqbal 2010; PIPS 2010; PPF

2009; Press Reference 2009).

This thesis examines the role of journalists and media in protracted conflict,

using as a case study the situation encountered by journalists that cover conflict

within Pakistan and its extension to Afghanistan. It looks at how journalists covering

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that conflict deal with enduring threats, with a particular focus on how journalists deal

with the psychological ramifications of such threats. The thesis aims to advocate for

further exploration of psychological support issues for journalists – especially in

Pakistan and Afghanistan, as both nations are entrenched in an ongoing conflict – and

lobby for the institutionalisation of psychological support issues and care practices

into the current discourse of safety and care, and promote the growth and

standardisation of such practices into organisational structures related to the safety of

journalists (Bryman 2008; Creswell 2007).

Purpose  &  Research  Questions  

Purpose  The purpose of this study is to examine how conflict and war journalists in Pakistan

deal with threats encountered in their work in the light of a growing amount of

literature that validates feelings of emotional stress and disorder among reporters that

cover conflict, and an obligation to address their psychological needs more directly.

Research  Question  What is the role of journalists and the media in protracted conflicts and how do

journalists covering situations of conflict deal with enduring threats?

Sub  Questions  o What is the role of journalists and media for understanding the conflict in

Pakistan and Afghanistan? (i.e. What is the significance of the journalist in

understanding the conflict and how does that relate to the importance of their

mental health for covering the story?)

o How do journalists covering the Pakistan and Afghan conflicts deal with

enduring threats and post-traumatic stress?

o What kind of existing support structures exist and how do they help

journalists?

o What is necessary, in terms of psychological support, for journalists?

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Method  &  Selection  

Methodology  (Design):  Case  Study  (Non-­‐Experimental)  A qualitative case study analysis of the situation faced by journalists covering conflict

in Pakistan, and by extension Afghanistan – through the utilisation of an extensive

literature review and semi-structured interviews with pre-selected journalists – is

used. A case study approach was chosen because multiple sources of information

(Pakistani journalists and non-Pakistani journalists covering conflict in Pakistan and

Afghanistan) were easily accessible – as the researcher (myself) was in Islamabad,

Pakistan, for the research – and provided the best means by which the main research

question could be answered. “Purposeful maximal sampling”, as described by

Creswell (2007: 75), in which interview samples are chosen to portray varied opinions

and perspectives toward the problem, is employed. The case study interview samples

chosen for this research have been used because they have the potential to show a

range of opinions regarding the way individual journalists deal with traumatic stress

and how they feel about psychological support (Creswell 2007).

Muller (2010) used a case study of the ‘Black Saturday’ bushfires near

Melbourne, Australia in 2009, to explore the ways in which situations of trauma could

be better reported on in the future, and what kind of effect trauma had on those

reporting it and the victims. A choice of a case study approach was successful

because it allowed the researchers to collect in-depth information regarding journalists

and their interaction with the effects of trauma in a way that, presumably, no other

method could. It also provided a means for analysis through generalisation of their

feedback which has become useful for newsrooms in Australia, international media

support organisations, like the Dart Center, and social and psychological researchers

(Shapiro 2010). It is hoped that a similar gleaning of the results of the study

presented here will aid in the discourse of psychological support for conflict

journalists, the implementation of support practices and lead to further research that

promotes the safety and well-being of journalists in Pakistan, Afghanistan and other

areas of conflict, so that they can do their work better and more securely.

Interviews  Interviews are used as the primary source of data collection. Semi-structured

interviews, as described by Kvale and Brinkmann, are utilised because they have the

potential to provide descriptions of the “life world” of journalists and media workers

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in Pakistan, which in turn allows for the interpretation of described phenomena to

imbue it with meaning related to the research (2009: 3). Over the last decade,

interviews have been employed by psychological and social researchers to gain access

to the needs of journalists and discover the different realities that make up their

worlds. The International Media Support (IMS) report (2009), reviewed extensively

below, used interviews to create its recommendations with regards to media safety in

Pakistan. The bulk of Anthony Feinstein’s (2003) qualitative data analysis with

regards to psychopathology in journalists made use of in-depth interviews to map out

a landscape of the kind of psychiatric difficulties conflict and war journalists face.

Historically, interviews have been employed for research methods from the ancient

Greeks’ Thucydides and Socrates, to Freud, to Piaget, and now extensively to

journalists throughout the world (Kvale & Brinkmann 2009).

This study makes use of six separate interviews with journalists representing

various different avenues of knowledge production about the conflict in Pakistan, and

Afghanistan. The interviewees selected (samples) were chosen in relation to their

proximity to the subject matter, i.e. all of the journalists have covered either violent

conflict or war in Pakistan and/or Afghanistan. Due to constraints with regards to the

size of the project1 and the purpose of the study being a qualitative examination of the

situation faced by conflict and war journalists in Pakistan, and Afghanistan, interview

samples were limited to six subjects so to gain an in-depth understanding of the

themes that represent their experiences while retaining a representative purposive

sampling that showcases journalists that cover conflict all over the country, including

the Northwest Frontier Province (NWFP), the Federally Administered Tribal Areas

(FATA), Balochistan, Islamabad, and in Afghanistan (Bryman 2008; Kvale &

Brinkmann 2009).

Further, each of the journalists adhere to a definition of themselves and their

role in the collection of news information as that proposed traditionally by media

theorists and researchers as part of the 4th Estate. This means that the journalists in

the study regard and practice their work as a service that acts as a watchdog of power

and governments, and that they employ, to an extent, objectively-based

methodologies to their reportage that precludes special interests, propaganda, or

government influence (Curran & Seaton 1997). The journalists are also subject to the 1 According to The Centre for East & South East Asian Studies (Lund University) ‘Guidelines for the Master’s Thesis’, the thesis “should consist of maximum 15 000 words” (2008: 18).

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scrutiny of what Tim Allen and Jean Seaton describe as ‘the media of conflict’, which

means that their roles in the reportage of conflict pertains to that of somebody who is

able to contextualise events by adopting the role of a story-teller, historian or political

scientist, among others. This is contrasted with the journalist who does not

understand a conflict and as a result employs sensationalist or primordialist

explanations to complex news events (Allen & Seaton: 1999).

The interview questions chosen for the study2 were selected to allow the

interviewees to formulate their own opinions with regards to physical and

psychological threats encountered in their work and how they deal with them. The

idea is to inductively generate theory about the nature of their situations in relation to

the conflict and ways in which their jobs could be better served and made more

efficient by recognising the importance of psychological care as detailed by Anthony

Feinstein (2003). In this way, the research is both deductive and inductive, in that the

researcher (myself) assumes that psychological distress as a result of conflict

coverage is important, yet does not know other possible issues related to this topic

that may occupy the interviewees’ minds or how the interviewees view the issue. For

this reason the questions are semi-structured so that the researcher can guide the

interviewee toward an exploration of the subject matter that may yield positive results

while also allowing the interviewee to guide the researcher toward aspects of the issue

he could not foresee (Kvale & Brinkmann 2009; Bryman 2008).

Participants  As mentioned above, the interviewees were chosen to represent various perspectives

of the coverage of conflict, the role of the journalist, and how they deal with threats,

called “purposeful maximal sampling” (Creswell 2007: 75). However, the samples

can also be characterised as accessible, as described by Creswell and Bryman (2007;

2008), in that they were some of the most accessible among a long list of

representative participants the researcher could have selected from. One weakness of

the reliability of the study is that it fails to include the perspective of a female

journalist. Further, the sampling is biased in that it represents a selection of

journalists based on the researcher’s personal judgement, and interactions he had with

Pakistani friends, of what a representative sampling of journalists who cover conflict

2 See Appendixes 1, 2 and 3.

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in Pakistan and Afghanistan would look like. However, the journalists selected as

samples for the study are successfully able to inform a qualitative understanding of

the central research question and their answers are consistent with the information

needed to conduct a case study analysis so should be respected as reliable and valid

sources of data (Creswell 2007).

The participants in the study included Hironobu Kubota, Kamal Hyder,

Munawer Azeem, Tahir Khan, a freelance journalist from Balochistan, who wished

not to be named and so has been given the title ‘Journalist X’, and Zahir Shah Sherazi.

Hironobu Kubota is a Japanese freelance journalist from Tokyo. He was included in

the study to represent the international dimension of conflict in the region and the

participation of foreign media in the reportage of conflict in Afghanistan and

Pakistan. He is fairly well-known in Japan for his work on Afghanistan and Iraq, and

is the only journalist of non-Pakistani origin in the study. Kamal Hyder was chosen

as a representative of an international news organisation, Al Jazeera, so to gain a

perspective on how support structures differ from or are similar to local means of

support for journalists. He reports from all over the country, including NWFP,

FATA, Balochistan, and Afghanistan as well. Munawer Azeem is a crime journalist

from Islamabad employed at Dawn, possibly the best known English daily in the

country and abroad. While not identified specifically as a war/conflict journalist, he

was included in the study because crime journalism in the capital, Islamabad, involves

conflict coverage as the reportage and investigation into suicide bombings and other

crime around the city is often interlinked to the conflict. Tahir Khan, the editor or

Network News International (NNI), was included to represent the Urdu language

press and as someone who reports from Afghanistan and NWFP. Journalist X was

chosen as a representative of the difficulties faced in reporting from and about

Balochistan. He is a freelance journalist that works for several local and international

TV stations and newspapers.

The last journalist, Zahir Shah Sherazi, was not originally included in the

research design but was added to the study because of the unique perspective he could

add to the research question. On 5 April 2010, during my interview with Kamal

Hyder in Islamabad, there was a series of suicide bombings, explosions and a gun

battle in Peshawar that took place near the American consulate3. Zahir Shah Sherazi

3 http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8603288.stm

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witnessed the violence first-hand and was being contacted as a source by Kamal

Hyder on the day of the incident. Later in the month, 21 April 2010, I contacted him

as well to try and get an understanding of how he felt about that specific incident.

The interview questions for Zahir Shah Sherazi differed from those of the other five

journalists4 to reflect this specific case.

Disposition  The thesis body is broken up into three main sections. The first looks at empirical

literature related to four main threats faced by conflict journalists in Pakistan, and

how those threats can, either directly or indirectly, lead toward traumatic stress.

These include psychological threats, the threat of the state, described in historical

terms, physical threats, and threats from militants’ media propaganda. The second

part of the thesis draws out six themes that emerged during interviews, which

included Trauma, Lack of Support, Politics, Sympathy, Courage, and Duty. The

section ends with a subsection entitled, ‘Lessons Learned’, which highlights the

practical suggestions advanced by the interviewees about how to deal with traumatic

stress and other issues. The final section outlines how the six themes and four threats

can be grouped into two theoretical categories. The first is a socio-psychological

framework which suggests that an understanding of conflict journalists’ identity

construction can help to understand why individuals choose a career in war reportage,

and why those that do encounter traumatic stress in their work rarely seek help. The

second contextualises conflict journalists in Pakistan within a framework based in

critical security studies and proposes a practical means by which the issues of

physical and psychological safety and security of journalists could be advanced.

2.  Empirical  Context  (Literature  Review):  Threats  faced  by  Journalists  &  Media  in  Pakistan  

Psychological  Threats  Dr. Anthony Feinstein, in his Dangerous Lives (2003) documents the psychological

difficulties of many whose job it is to report on war and other types of conflict. His

interest became piqued in the subject of trauma and journalists after treating a patient 4 See Appendix 3.

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(a war reporter) that had conversion disorder5 and subsequently searching the

psychological literature related to journalists who cover conflict, only to realise that

he had stumbled on a “virgin topic” and “could not find a single reference to the

subject, no articles, chapters or abstracts” (2003: 6). Realising the need for a detailed

analysis of media professionals and the possible psychological complications they

encounter due to the nature of their work Feinstein, John Owen and Nancy Blair

embarked on a study designed to measure the nature and extent of psychopathology in

conflict journalists. They did so by collecting a sample group of 140 journalists,

whose names and contact details they received from six major news organisations,

including the Associated Press, BBC, CBC, CNN, ITN and Reuters. The journalists

included in the study had spent an average of 15 years in conflict zones. They were

asked to fill out an online questionnaire which recorded their demographics, alcohol

and drug use, and made an assessment of their psychological state regarding PTSD,

depression, other psychological distress and personality traits. Afterwards, a random

sample of 20% of the 140 journalists who participated in the study was selected for

direct interviews at various places around the world. The interviewer was blind to the

initial questionnaire results. Further, a comparison group of 107 domestic journalists

to act as a control group, who had not reported on conflict, were given the same

questionnaire and 19 (18%) of those were selected for direct interviews (Feinstein et.

al. 2002).

After comparing the results, Feinstein et. al. found that war journalists are at a

considerable greater risk of encountering psychiatric difficulties – particularly PTSD

and major depression, with levels comparable to combat veterans – than their

domestic counterparts. Alcohol use among conflict journalists was also twice to three

times higher than those who had not covered war. And the search for psychiatric

treatment among war journalists as a solution to combat their mental struggles was

only slightly greater, at 26.2% for war journalists and 16.2% for non-war journalists.

The study concluded that up to one in four conflict journalists suffer from PTSD and

have a tendency for life-long major depression as a result of their work. The authors

suggested that their study act as a “wake up call” for the news industry and invited

other researchers to do similar work as this study was the first of its kind and could

not be absolutely conclusive (Feinstein et. al 2002). 5 A “rerouting of emotional distress into physical symptoms, an unconscious process that changes, or converts, emotional dysfunction into neurological abnormalities” (Feinstein 2003: 3).

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Following Feinstein’s study, other investigations into the divergence of

journalism and the effects of traumatic experience were made. Just last year, in 2009,

in Victoria, Australia, The Centre for Advanced Journalism at The University of

Melbourne conducted an examination of media workers who covered the “Black

Saturday” bushfires of 2009 to learn more about the effects of covering disaster and

how it might be better covered in the future. The study consisted of 28 semi-

structured in-depth interviews with media personnel who had volunteered their input,

including editors, directors, video journalists, reporters, photographers, and others.

The study found that media workers’ emotions were severely affected by their

reportage. Seasoned journalists that had experience covering conflict were reported to

better be able to handle the emotional toll of confrontation with disaster than their less

experienced counterparts. The study found that the most important aspects

contributing to trauma for the journalists were the intensity and scale of destruction

wrought by the bushfires, the cruelness of the fires, and the journalists’ continual

exposure to intense human suffering. Media workers’ trauma was magnified by the

closeness of the tragedy and its juxtaposition with the peacefulness and serenity of

downtown Melbourne, where many journalists filed their reports. Tensions between

those who had covered the fires and those who stayed in the newsrooms, and between

journalists and their families, were recorded as many of the journalists felt that other

people could not understand the magnanimity of the problem. Media workers

involved in reportage of the bushfires reported a loss of interest in the more mundane

common stories that they were accustomed to reporting (Muller 2010).

In response to the difficulties journalists experienced while covering this

event, newsrooms and employers offered counselling services but few journalists took

them up as they were worried that they would be labelled as unfit to report on future

important events involving traumatic or violent disaster. Accordingly, many sought

help privately and out of view of their employers. Debriefings in the newsrooms were

also held but psychosomatic issues were rarely addressed. The study concludes that

news organisations, when offering psychiatric help to their employees should do so in

a proper way that invites employees to take them up on their offers; a culture of

acceptance toward psychological stress should be promoted; owners and staff should

be involved; the right kind of help should be offered; operational and personal

debriefings should be separated; and personal debriefings should be held on a one-to-

one basis. The study closes by saying that media “professional and industry support

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mechanisms are underdeveloped and a culture persists, despite decades of evidence to

the contrary, that ‘real reporters don’t cry’” (Muller 2010: 10).

Other studies that look into the effect of trauma on journalists have come to

similar conclusions over the years. Many found that reporters, regardless of whether

or not they were war reporters, witness trauma at some time during their careers.

However, the majority of journalists are resilient in the face of trauma and do not

show symptoms of PTSD or other types of traumatic disorders. This is supported by

Feinstein’s study as well. PTSD remains relatively low in the industry overall except

for war and conflict journalists, who have an alarmingly high rate, at over 25%.

Studies on the effects of trauma on journalists have concluded, in general, that despite

a growing awareness of the importance of addressing psychological issues in

journalists, a culture still exists that frowns upon seeking treatment for these

problems. Accordingly, training programmes that address trauma and more easily

available resources for dealing with trauma are needed within the news world. It is

thought that as an organisational structure that supports habits of awareness and care

grows that less harm will come to conflict and war journalists, and increased

productivity and satisfaction with their work will flourish (Smith & Newman 2009).

Historical  Context:  The  Press,  The  State  &  Censorship  One of the problems journalists encounter when covering the conflict in Pakistan, and

by extension Afghanistan, is the problem of the Pakistani state, which exerts its

influence over media through censorship, intimidation and direct violence. As a result

of this, media workers face further potential for traumatic experiences.

While media law was liberalised under President Musharraf in 2002, the

country has endured three separate, and lengthy, periods of direct military rule: 1958

to 1971; 1977 to 1988; and 1999 to 2008. Under military rule democratic discourse is

stifled and civil society restricted, which makes it difficult for media to function

properly as the 4th Estate. It is true that General Musharraf liberalised media during

his rule but it proved to be his downfall as well, in that without media coverage,

support and rallying of civil society groups in favour of the Lawyers Movement6 in

2007 and into 2009, he likely would not have been forced from office (IMS 2009).

6 On 9 March 2007, President Pervez Musharraf dismissed the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Pakistan, Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, which sparked a movement of protest among lawyers

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However, it is not only under military rule that the Pakistani press has faced

challenges from the state. From its inception in 1947, the Pakistani state has wrestled

with the role the press should play in the country. The Muslim press following

partition of the country in 1947 was censored and certain publications banned because

it was seen to be leading toward the instability of the state. In 1960, the Western

Pakistan Maintenance of Public Order Ordinance was enacted making the arrest and

detention of media personnel easier and repression more institutionalised. “With

amendments [to the ordinance] in 1963 and 1964, this law empowered the

government to ban the printing of publications, to enter and search premises, and to

prohibit import of newspapers, among other measures. These powers have been used

by succeeding governments right up until the government of Musharraf” (Press

Reference 2010). Also in 1963, the Press and Publications Ordinance (PPO) was

introduced, which severely censored progressive viewpoints and curtailed freedom of

expression. This ordinance was used extensively by General Yahya Khan following

his takeover and imposition of martial law in 1969. Further, the creation of the

National Press Trust in 1964 led to the takeover of a number of publications by the

government. The PPO was not repealed until 1988 (Press Reference 2010).

Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, although being responsible for the institution of the 1973

constitution, which promoted civil rights, freedom of speech and democracy,

continued to lock-up journalists and editors and repress media. During Bhutto’s rule

the only two press agencies in Pakistan, the Associated Press of Pakistan7 (APP) and

Pakistan Press International (PPI), were government-run and controlled. In 1977,

General Zia ul-Haq ousted President Bhutto in a military coup and instituted martial

law. During his reign, media repression became more commonplace and overt with

public floggings of journalists and direct threats to media publications. After Zia ul-

Haq’s death and succession by Ghulam Ishaq Khan, the PPO was repealed but a new

law, the Registration of Printing Presses and Publications, was instituted which made

it mandatory for a publishing house or news publication to obtain a receipt from the

government to operate. This law could be used as a form of censorship (Press

Reference 2010).

throughout the country to establish the Rule of Law, respect the supremacy of civilian and constitutional rule of the military, and to reinstate the Chief Justice (Movement for Rule of Law). 7 Not to be confused with the Associated Press International (AP).

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However, this new law acted more to free the press than restrain it.

Government power over the press was removed and publications that faced censure or

closure were now able to defend themselves in person before action was taken against

them. The election of Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto in 1988 saw the enactment of

more liberalised media laws, especially with regards to television, which was able to

broadcast opposition party views as well as the Pakistan People’s Party’s (PPP;

Bhutto’s party). This lasted for only four months though because of pressure within

the PPP. Regardless, news media continued to become more empowered and

balanced during this time and the Ministry of Information abolished the issuance of

permits to import newsprint. In 1990, Bhutto was removed from government and

accused of corruption by President Ishaq Khan. The new prime minister, Nawaz

Sharif, restored the system of issuance of permits for the importation of news print

and cracked down on media with censor, closure of publications and punitive action.

The press, however, continually reported on Sharif’s abuse of power, which may have

helped to lead toward his downfall by a military coup by General Musharraf in 1999

(Press Reference 2010).

General Musharraf, though ruling through dictatorial rule, liberalised press

freedoms from 2002 onwards. It is thought that he did so to counter the power

exerted by Indian media and the debacle which ensued following the Kargil War in

1999. Since 2002, Pakistani media has flourished, although a number of obstacles are

still faced. At the beginning of 2008, a report was released by the International

Federation of Journalists which described a rapidly deteriorating situation for

journalists within Pakistan as, then-president Pervez Musharraf, called into being a

state of emergency that immediately affected journalists through detentions and other

forms of censorship. The Pakistan Electronic Media Regulation Authority (PEMRA)

was given the power to close offices and stop broadcasts of media throughout the

country. Military took over press offices, confiscated film, and reports of police

beating journalists that were covering the Lawyer’s Movement were common. In

November 2007, almost 200 journalists covering a protest in Karachi were detained.

Further, as recently as 2009 – under President Asif Ali Zardari, who succeeded

Musharraf in 2008 – Geo TV was outright banned early in the year for its coverage of

the Lawyers’ Movement and later in the year prevented one of its shows, ‘Meray

Mutabiq’, from being broadcast from Dubai. The show’s host, Dr. Shahid Masood,

was allegedly threatened by PPP leaders as well (IMS 2009; PPF 2009; Muralidharan

15

et. al. 2008). The precariousness of media law in Pakistan, shifting government

power from civilian to military, and the lack of respect for law that does aim to

protect the rights of journalists and media workers all leads to a situation of insecurity

that has the potential to magnify the effects of trauma on media workers, especially

those that cover the conflict.

Physical  Threats  

Source:

http://www.pakistanpressfoundation.org/data/uploaded/2009bloody%20year.pdf

Journalists in Pakistan face threats not only from government censors, military

personnel, police and varying press laws but also from immediate physical threats that

endanger their livelihoods. From the formation of Pakistan in 1947, journalists and

media faced recurrent threats from the government establishment and official

censorship. While this pressure still exists it has been weakened. However, since the

arrival of a freer press, particularly since 2002, the threat has shifted from government

to militants and because of the precarious nature of the relationship between militants

and the government (with the government sometimes supporting them or turning a

blind-eye to their actions), it is often not entirely clear who commits violence against

the media. Therefore, violence is often committed with impunity (IMS 2009; Siddiqa

2009).

The immediate physical threat to the population at large in Pakistan is

apparent as well. “According to [the] Pakistan Security Report... 86 suicide attacks

struck Pakistan during 2009, which killed 1,299 persons and wounded 3,633 others”

16

(Iqbal 2010: 2). Journalists, in particular, are in great danger because they seek out

the conflict, as is the nature of their work, and are often targets of militants, and

sometimes government-minders, within the country. During 2009, including and

excluding suicide attacks, 10 journalists were killed, 10 were abducted or arrested, 70

were either assaulted or injured, 28 were intimidated or threatened, 3 were gagged,

censored or banned in some way, and there were 10 attacks on media property or

establishments (PPF 2009). For the purpose of this study, it is assumed here that

physical threats greatly contribute to a general unsurity of being and lead toward

possible traumatic symptoms among journalists in the country.

In early 2009, International Media Support8 (IMS) went on a fact-finding

mission to Pakistan to assess how Pakistani media functions and is affected by the

current conflict and issued a report based on their findings. It found that Pakistan is

one of the most dangerous countries in the world for journalists to report from and

that self-censorship and an information vacuum in some areas of the country,

particularly the North West Frontier Province (NWFP), the Federally Administered

Tribal Areas (FATA) and Balochistan, existed as commonplace occurrences. The

report included within it a needs assessment for issues facing media within the

country, identified organisations that may be able to help initiate and/or advocate for

media support issues, and listed four broad-based recommendations for improving

support for journalists. These addressed security and safety issues for media workers,

Pakistani-Afghan media relations, media distortion and the information vacuum, and

the quality of journalism (IMS 2009).

According to the report, the southwest areas of NWFP, FATA and Balochistan

are the most dangerous areas for journalists covering the conflict to report from.

FATA is under the control of Pashtun Salafist jihadists, which are ethnically linked to

the Afghan Taliban, and represent what is known as the Pakistani Taliban (TTP). Al

Qaeda also has a strong presence in the area. From FATA, attacks are launched in

Pakistan, Afghanistan and overseas. IMS estimates that about 200 journalists work in

FATA but that many of them do not do their job properly because of security

concerns. It is not only the journalists under fire but their families as well and even

when journalists report in media published abroad they are threatened as extremists

8 an NGO based in Denmark devoted to the support of media around the world, especially those that operate under challenging circumstances associated with conflict, human security and political transition.

17

monitor international media. Just being a journalist in FATA is risky because

militants see journalists as agents that either work for the army or intelligence. The

situation has created an information vacuum both for news coming into FATA and

going out; reporting is descriptive, non-analytical and there is almost no investigatory

work (IMS 2009; Siddiqa 2009).

NWFP is in a war-like environment and journalists are forced to practice

self-censorship as the situation is extremely sensitive. Militants understand that

controlling the news agenda favours their cause and monitor news coming out of the

area closely. Rahimullah Yousaf Zai – editor of The News International in Peshawar

– says that as a reporter one has to think about every possible scenario and that

includes taking into account the interests of tribal groups, militants, intelligence and

the army. Reporters all over the area have been affected as the conflict has permeated

every aspect of society. Journalists have taken to wearing bulletproof vests and even

carrying guns. It is particularly difficult for cameramen as they need to go to the

scene of violence to cover it and easily stick out, whereas print journalists can use

their cell phones to contact sources. In 2009, Mosa Khankel, a Geo TV cameraman,

was killed in the Swat Valley and Musa Khan from the same organisation was

decapitated (IMS 2009).

Journalists face a different kind of threat in Balochistan although with the

same consequences. Militant violence in Balochistan normally stems from separatists

groups but also includes jihadist groups tied to the network of militant organisations

mentioned above, like Al Qaeda. In 2008, five journalists were killed, five kidnapped

and 12 assaulted. The military is also known to use brute force when encountered

with difficulties from media in the area (IMS 2009; Siddiqa 2009).

While FATA, NWFP and Balochistan are the most dangerous, safety issues

for journalists are in no way confined to these areas. For the past several years,

militancy and jihadist-related violence has spread and strengthened throughout

Punjab, Sindh and Islamabad. In Punjab and Sindh, violent Sunni Deobandi jihadists

are wide-spread. These groups include Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP), Jaish-e-

Mohammad (JeM) and Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ). However, the Wahabi/Ahl-e-Hadith

18

influenced Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), the group responsible for the Mumbai attacks in

2008, operates as well9 (IMS 2009; Siddiqa 2009).

The IMS study found that the main hindrance to implementing safety

precautions, training and assistance to media workers in Pakistan was money. Media

owners and editors do not want to implement training programmes and provide safety

assistance to their journalists because they cannot afford it. The study also found a

lack of awareness about safety issues among journalists and cited instances that had

the journalists been minimally trained before entering a conflict zone their lives may

have been spared. The only media company that stood as an exception to the rule was

Dawn which has an “internally developed risk-assessment system” and does not allow

staff to enter conflict zones without first taking the proper safety precautions, which

sometimes involves wearing a bulletproof vest and carrying medicine (IMS 2009: 38).

To counter the dire position of safety for media professionals in Pakistan, IMS

made recommendations in four areas for how to improve safety for journalists: 1)

monitoring and documentation of violations; 2) capacity building in risk-awareness

and safety preparedness; 3) risk response mechanisms; and 4) advocacy and lobbying

activities. The first – monitoring – suggests that media organisations in conjunction

with the Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists (PFUJ) and Intermedia (an NGO that

works to support media rights in Pakistan) should collect detailed accounts of

violence and harassment against media to create protection and prevention procedures

for media professionals and for the advocacy of such procedures. The second –

capacity building in risk-awareness and safety procedures – asks that international and

national organisations come together and share information about safety awareness,

highlight the most important areas of need, and strengthen awareness among editors

and owners of media products. The third area for improvement – risk response

mechanisms – says that some kind of response mechanism needs to be created for

journalists in immediate need of assistance due to the threat of physical violence.

This too should involve the PFUJ and other local unions and make use of a hotline,

safe houses and relocation abilities for journalists in need (IMS 2009). Finally, the

fourth area of concern – advocacy and lobbying – suggests that in tandem with

9 In fact, The Independent of London reported on 26 March 2010 that Hafiz Muhammad Saeed – the man thought to have orchestrated the 2008 Mumbai attacks which resulted in the deaths of over 100 people – was free and living comfortably in Lahore (Fisk 2010).

19

Security Council resolution 173810 and article 19 of the Universal Declaration of

Human Rights11 dialogue should be sought out between the government, military and

police about the rights of journalists and their role in society. Further, advocacy for

the growth of the Ministry of Information’s media safety fund can be enhanced

through the cooperation of international media rights organisations promotion of

issues in Pakistan (IMS 2009). While the IMS report was comprehensive and

informative, the one area it failed to address was psychopathology and other mental

pressures exerted over journalists that frequently cover violent conflict.

Threats  from  Propaganda:  Militants’  Media  &  State  Identity  According to the Pakistan Institute for Peace Studies (PIPS), journalists are also under

threat from other media apparatus which support militant ideology and jihad12.

According to a PIPS 2010 report, Understanding the Militants’ Media in Pakistan,

which focuses on print publications as they are the most extensively consumed media

content throughout the country, militant media organisations make up a substantial

amount of the over 945 daily and weekly newspapers and magazines in circulation

throughout Pakistan. They are also extremely resilient in that after being forcibly shut

down by the government, they often reappear with different names or are

clandestinely distributed in mosques, coffee shops or other meeting places. These

publications have their origins in the 1970s Soviet-Afghan war and see as their

purpose the protection of Islam, not only in Pakistan, but world-wide. Their enemies

include the United States, US-led forces, like NATO, Israel, India, and both the

Pakistani and Afghan governments (PIPS 2010). They present a threat to more

legitimate forms of journalism13 because extremist ideology and militancy are part

and parcel of what makes it so difficult to be a journalist in Pakistan.

10 States should “prevent violations of international humanitarian law against civilians, including journalists, media professionals and associated personnel”. Further, the resolution “emphasizes the responsibility of States to comply with the relevant obligations under international law to end impunity and to prosecute those responsible for serious violations of international humanitarian law” and “urges all parties involved in situations of armed conflict to respect the professional independence and rights of journalists, media professionals and associated personnel as civilians” (IMS 2009: 42). 11 This document “underlines the responsibilities of the States, as well as other actors, to ensure that journalists and other media workers are protected and can carry out their work unhindered” (IMS 2009: 42). 12 “armed effort” 13 The PIPS report states as one of its recommendations “these militants’ publications are considered and treated not as media products, but as propaganda tools… [and that analytically they are better

20

However, the PIPS report also emphasizes, what it calls a “structural fault”

within the historical debate over the purpose of the foundation of the Pakistani state,

i.e. whether the original intent was to create a separate state just for Muslims in the

subcontinent or protect the socio-political-economic rights of Indian Muslims as it

was thought during separation that Muslim Indians’ livelihoods could be jeopardised

in a Hindu-majority state (2010: 9; 207). According to the report, the phenomenon of

militants’ media in Pakistan cannot be separated from the conflict taking place within

the country and the conflict is an extension of a “historical process of Islamization”,

which included media, and often forced it to support jihadi ideologies against

potential threats, such as India or the USSR (PIPS 2010: 207). Accordingly, the

outlook of Pakistani journalism is intertwined with the socio-political-religious

landscape, which derives its context from the politics of identity that formed at the

very beginning of the state (PIPS 2010).

This analysis fits neatly with historical explanations of the interactions

between the state and non-state militant actors by many authors, including Tariq Ali,

Husain Haqqani, Ahmed Rashid and Ayesha Siddiqa. Particularly, the securitisation

of media personnel14 could be seen through the lens of a conflict between what

constitutes the Pakistani state’s identity – as that of a liberal democracy, authoritarian

regime or Islamic caliphate. Ayesha Siddiqa argues that the spread of jihadism in

Pakistan is due directly to this multi-faced strategy for pursuing terrorists. On the one

hand, the Pakistani government condemns foreign terrorist groups, such as the Afghan

Taliban and Al Qaeda, and domestic groups, including SSP, LeJ, JeM, and LeT, but

on the other hand, they secretly support and even encourage the flourishing of these

groups to combat against Indian influence and American hegemony. In fact, many

jihad organisations connected to Kashmir and India have grown in power and

influence since 2008, which they could not have done without the support of the state,

despite the government’s publicised efforts to crackdown on militant organisations.

Siddiqa recommends that the state withdraw support of all kinds for radical Islamic

groups and make an effort to convince the populace that jihadism is not the way

forward. This proves extremely difficult because the situation in Pakistan involves

not only extremist Islamic militants, Baloch separatist movements, border problems classified] using the internationally accepted frameworks in distinguishing the journalistic media product from a propaganda output” (2010: 207). 14 This concept is fully explained in the theoretical discussion on the securitisation of media and its personnel near the end of the thesis.

21

and securitisation of its interests against India, and the Afghan war, but also a great

socio-economic divide that has marginalised huge swaths of the populace, who are

poor and often destitute compared with a small richer elite (Ali 2008; Haqqani 2005;

Rashid 2008; Siddiqa 2009).

Rai Shakil Akhtar (2001) argues that the most important aspects of Pakistan’s

politics should be understood as structures from its colonial past, which have been

reinforced by the mass media. Akhtar identifies the problem of socio-economic

disparity as “parasitic landlordism” and that democracy can only come about at the

expense of the ruling elite (2001: xix). It is in this vein that the government, which is

ruled by powerful landlords or politicians with ties to them, finds itself in a fix.

People do not necessarily support the ideals of jihadi militant groups but, as one of

the only actors capable of influencing the political landscape and the rich-poor divide,

often believe that they are ones who will ultimately implement change in the country.

Siddiqa further recommends that an effort should be made to help people understand

that Salafist Islamic ideology, which promotes a return to the original four caliphs,

often leads toward violent jihadi practice. She continues that the state should admit

that there is a jihadi problem throughout the country, including the Punjab and Sindh,

and focus on creating a coherent policy to deal with it. She says that strengthening

“the socioeconomic network and improving delivery of services to the people is a

major part of the solution”, which mirrors both Ali’s and Akhtar’s analysis of the

situation (Siddiqa 2009: 69).

The PIPS report concludes that a re-evaluation of jihadi discourse on a state

level needs to take place in order to combat the problems presented by militants’

media. The report discourages treating the problem as separate from militancy, in

general, and asserts that military and non-military intervention should be considered.

This includes winning over support of the populace by instituting social and economic

investment to better the lives of affected populations. It recommends that when

dealing with militants’ media it should do so with the intention of identifying such

media as propaganda, and not proper journalistic content, so to strengthen the state’s

hand in thwarting such material (PIPS 2010). The report is revelatory in the sense

that it illuminates a wrestling match taking place within Pakistan over what kind of

identity should be adopted by the nation and how that fight is represented through

various media outlets. This is important with regards to the effects of trauma on

journalists because it uncovers a deeper level of conflict taking place in Pakistan that

22

indirectly affects the amount of violence journalists encounter when doing their work.

It shows that unless and until the ideological conflict taking place within the country

is resolved on a state level, the potential for increasing amounts of psychological

trauma and physical harm to journalists and media workers will continue as an

ideological base for violent jihadi actions will persist.

3.  Interviews  

Themes  As mentioned earlier, interviews were used as the primary source of data collection

and were conducted with Hironobu Kubota (a Japanese freelance journalist), Kamal

Hyder (Al Jazeera), Munawer Azeem (Dawn), Tahir Khan (NNI), Journalist X (a

freelance journalist from Balochistan) and Zahir Shah Sherazi (Dawn TV). The

interviews were conducted on the 16th of March, and the 5th, 7th, 10th, 12th, and 21st of

April 2010 respectively. After transcribing the interviews, the text was coded in

accordance with Bryman’s (2008) prescription for thematic analysis to highlight the

various themes and so draw out relevant material and then summarised in the text that

follows. The themes that emerged among the six journalists during the interview

processes included Trauma, Lack of Support, Politics, Sympathy, Courage and Duty.

Following these themes is section entitled ‘Lessons Learned’, which draws out the

practical suggestions advanced by the journalists for how to deal with traumatic

stress, safety and other issues. The interview questions are listed out in Appendixes 1,

2 and 3, while the transcription is in Appendix 4.

Trauma  Several themes of trauma, stress and traumatic episodes became apparent during

interviews, which is not surprising as I specifically asked about this. Hironobu

Kubota spoke of being “scared” of Pakistani intelligence and police officers breaking

into his guesthouse and hotel rooms in Pakistan to search through his belongings on

his numerous visits to the country. Mr. Kubota sympathised with Japanese soldiers

coming back from Iraq with PTSD because, he said, journalists experience the same

kind of thing. He said upon arrival in Japan after reporting from a dangerous place he

often could not sleep well for several days or weeks afterwards and became angry

easily and quickly despite the fact that he sees himself as a peaceful and kind person.

23

He claimed that it happens every time he goes to a war or conflict zone, such as

Afghanistan or Iraq. Mr. Kubota was in Iraq at the beginning of the war in 2003 and

after the second day of bombing by the Americans, which he reported on for Japanese

television from Baghdad, he declared that it was “like my brain is also crazy”. He

could not move or talk and said that he sat limp for a couple of days after the

bombings. Although, he asserted that it was not only him that was suffering, ordinary

Iraqi people too had suffered traumatic stress. He gave an account of a friend’s

daughter, who after the bombing could no longer go outside as it scared her too much,

and an Iraqi teenager who was beaten by American troops and returned home unable

to speak.

Following our interview, Mr. Kubota left to Afghanistan for two weeks and

returned to Islamabad on 2 April 2010. He was quite distressed upon his return as his

friend, Kosuke Tsuneoka, was kidnapped that same day. Mr. Kubota had been with

him the day before his return to Islamabad. Mr. Kubota’s original plans were to

return to Japan but as he believed that he was one of the only people that could

successfully negotiate Kosuke Tsuneoka’s release he stayed on in Pakistan and

returned to Afghanistan a few days later and is still in Afghanistan as this article is put

to publish and Kosuke Tsuneoka is still missing15. Mr. Kubota said that in all of his

years covering Afghanistan – from 1997 to the present – the current situation is more

dangerous than ever. While Mr. Kubota was in Afghanistan during his two-week

sojourn in March and April of 2010, fake police in Kabul attempted to kidnap him as

well but, fortunately, he escaped by kicking and punching his assailants. He later had

to have the handcuffs which were placed on his wrists cut off by the Japanese

embassy in Kabul.

On 5 April 2010, I interviewed Kamal Hyder. On that day a series of

explosions and a gun fight took place in Peshawar, which demanded that our

interview was continually interrupted because Mr. Hyder had to do live broadcasts on

the balcony for Al Jazeera. Near the American consulate in Peshawar there was a

small bomb blast followed by three extremely large blasts that were caught on camera

by Geo and Dawn TV cameramen. Kamal Hyder, while not speaking of trauma

experienced by his self, talked about what the Dawn Peshawar bureau chief, Zahir

Shah Sherazi, had said to him over the phone. Mr. Sherazi witnessed the three

15 http://cpj.org/2010/04/japanese-journalist-reported-kidnapped-in-afghanis.php

24

explosions first-hand and told Kamal Hyder that the experience was “devastating” and

was surprised that he survived as people standing around him had either been injured

or killed. I spoke with Mr. Sherazi as well. He said that his experience was “strange”

because he was only metres away from the blasts. He recounted other close calls with

danger in NWFP, at the Zangali checkpost16 and the Pearl Continental Hotel17 but said

that being at the blast and witnessing it first-hand was far more traumatic. He also

said that covering conflict with dead bodies and lots of bloodshed had a demoralising

and depressing effect whether you witness the blast yourself or get to the site

afterwards.

Tahir Khan reported difficulties of dealing with stress as well saying everyday

from morning until night he worries, especially after having done a television

broadcast. Mr. Khan is the editor for a print journalism publication, NNI, but often

appears on television for his expertise in tribal affairs, terrorism and the tribal regions.

After appearing on TV, he says that he’s worried about being kidnapped or beaten.

He receives threats on the phone as well, sometimes real threats from militants if he is

seen to be intruding too far into a story. He gave the account of a story in which he

was working on about an Iraqi Al Qaeda man living in Waziristan. Militants

associated to the man threatened Mr. Khan assuming that he was an intelligence

agent. The episode diffused once the militants had investigated him. Journalist X,

from Balochistan, reported similar feelings about the prevalence of trauma in his life

and said that he deals with stress and trauma through drinking alcohol. He said that it

is common among the journalist community to either drink or smoke hashish as

alcohol and drug use are the only outlets with which to reduce trauma-related stress.

Lack  of  Support  A lack of support for both the publication of stories and attendance to the needs of

journalists showed up in the interviews as well. Problems with publishing stories

mainly affected Hironobu Kubota as he was the only completely freelance journalist

among the group. In 1997 when he first discovered the crisis affecting Afghanistan

and entered the country as a freelance photographer, he could not get his photos

published as the Japanese media had no interest in the country. Early in 2001, he 16 “Thirty-one people were killed and 81 others injured when a suicide bomber rammed his explosives-packed vehicle into the Zangali police post” in Peshawar in September 2008 (Khan 2008). 17 On 9 June 2009, the Pearl Continental Hotel in Peshawar was blown up by militants (Shah 2009).

25

decided to make a photo exhibition out of his coverage of the country to try and

explain to the Japanese public the problems facing Afghanistan. During his

exhibition, the Twin Towers fell in New York City and the United States

subsequently invaded the country. From that point on Mr. Kubota became quite

popular in Japan. However, since 2001, Japanese media has had little interest in the

country and Mr. Kubota, despite being well-known in Japan for war correspondence,

has trouble finding a home for his work. The other freelance journalist among those I

interviewed, Journalist X from Balochistan, also explained that he had difficulties

printing or broadcasting some of the things he reports on because in Balochistan

journalists have to practice self-censorship as the environment is threatening, and

appeasing the various different political factions, militants and government is

essential for survival.

Positive reflections about safety support came from Kamal Hyder, Munawer

Azeem and Zahir Shah Sherazi, the first working for Al Jazeera and the other two

working for Dawn. Kamal Hyder was singled out in this study as a representative of

an international news organisation with the assumption that support would be better

within his organisation and this proved to be true. Dawn was also singled out as the

IMS report said that they had an “internally developed risk assessment system” (IMS

2009: 30). However, with regards to psychological support both organisations

seemed to have little if nothing, and all three journalists did not seem to know what

such support could provide. The theme among both organisations seemed to be that

psychological support meant a phone call of encouragement. However, Kamal Hyder

proposed and supported the idea of journalists being trained on how to approach

victims of trauma and how to deal with it themselves. He furthered that “the support

element is fairly good, I would say brilliant with Al Jazeera, at par with any other”.

Politics  An interesting issue which came up quite frequently regarding the issue of support

was the political nature of journalist organisations in Pakistan, such as the PFUJ and

Intermedia. Both organisations are supposed to help journalists with regards to many

of the issues brought up in this study, and both organisations are singled out by IMS

in their 2009 report. However, two of the journalists interviewed in this study, Tahir

Khan and Journalist X, said that both organisations are politically motivated and so

26

when it comes to the issue of safety and support they are ineffective. Their notion

was backed up in a conversation I had with the Chief Reporter for The Nation,

Muhammad Afzal Bajwa. Tahir Khan explained that the Pakistani journalism

community is split between leftists and rightists and that the PFUJ is split as well,

along with Intermedia. Consequently, both organisations end up working for

advertisements, political profit and only attempt to help the patrons that support them.

The International Media Support report (2009) put a lot of emphasis on the

importance of these organisations in promoting the safety of journalists in Pakistan.

If rumours about these organisations are true, recommendations within the IMS report

about how Pakistan should promote safety among its journalists in the country will

have to be re-evaluated. Tahir Khan goes so far as to say that if an organisation is

created to support journalists’ physical and mental safety in Paksitan, it should not be

created by Pakistani’s as it will only become politicised if it is.

On a different but related note, Mr. Khan said that the journalism community

in Pakistan is not very strong so they cannot do much to help a journalist in need,

especially if politics are involved. He said, “if police are involved, if politicians are

involved, maybe people will protest. But when the security agencies are involved, I

don’t think the journalist groups are so much strong to defend you [or] your

institutions”. Mr. Khan also brought up the fact that the government bribes journalists

and cited a story about 40 well-known journalists who were given free hajj

(pilgrimage to Mecca) last year, 2009. Implicit in this gift was the journalists’

complicity in being favourable to the government in their reports.

Sympathy  “You try not to suddenly spring up there with a huge beta cam and say, guys can I see

the dead bodies, you know.”

Sympathy was another theme prevalent among the journalists I spoke with. Kamal

Hyder, Hironobu Kubota and Journalist X all expressed their concerns with the

ordinary people who inhabit the areas they report from as tantamount to the work they

do. Kamal Hyder explained the more intense origins of his sympathetic attitude

towards people as emerging from the pain and heartache he felt after his brother was

murdered. It made him think about how terrible the people caught up in the conflict

27

and subject to his reportage must actually feel. He explained that sympathy for the

people you cover should come before the story one wishes to report. He illustrated

this point by adding, “you try not to suddenly spring up there with a huge beta cam

and say, guys can I see the dead bodies, you know”.

Hironobu Kubota expressed his sympathetic attitude by saying that when he

arrived in the refugees’ camps in Pakistan in 1997 there was no support from the

United Nations (UN) or NGOs. Many children were dying so he decided to make an

exhibition in Japan to educate the Japanese people about what was going on inside

Afghanistan. Further, he recounted entering Iraq, in 2003, one month before the war

started, to cover non-Iraqis who were acting as human shields. Mr. Kubota says that

although he has suffered innumerable times from traumatic stress and wants to quit

covering war as a result, he continues to go to Afghanistan to photograph and film the

situation because he cares about the people and the country. He also feels fortunate to

have been born in Japan, a safe and stable country, and felt that because of his

fortunate circumstances he has a responsibility to do whatever he can to help.

Courage  Courage is a theme that stood out when interviewing the six journalists as well.

Originally, I was going to identify this theme as ‘unawareness’ but then realised that

all six journalists were well aware of the dangers of their work both physically and

mentally yet pursue stories with a relentless passion. Hironobu Kubuta and Zahir

Shah Sherazi especially seemed to throw caution to the wind. Mr. Kubota is

frequently searched and arrested by both the Pakistani and Afghan intelligence

services. Before one of our interviews he showed me footage he had taken in Iraq

during American bombing with a group of terrified people screaming and the camera

shaking violently while he ran through the street with the people looking for shelter.

Other footage included an American soldier violently beating a young man, and other

aggressive-looking American soldiers acting frantically near Mr. Kubota’s camera.

During the two week interval between my interview with Mr. Kubota, when he went

to Afghanistan and returned to Islamabad, he witnessed bombings which he chased

after to get footage of and photographed International Security Assistance Forces

(ISAF) pursuing their enemies in Afghanistan. His friend, Kosuke Tsuneoka, was

kidnapped during those two weeks and fake Afghan police attempted to kidnap Mr.

28

Kubota as well. Regardless of the dangers he encountered in those two weeks, Mr.

Kubota immediately returned to Afghanistan hoping to help his friend.

Zahir Shah Sherazi’s accounts of his life as a journalist, just over the last

couple of months, involving either first-hand accounts of bomb explosions and gun

battles in the streets of Peshawar and the tribal areas of NWFP and FATA were a little

shocking to listen to, especially because Mr. Sherazi sees these events as part of an

everyday workday. Kamal Hyder, Munawer Azeem, Tahir Khan and Journalist X all

had similar accounts of immediate danger and threatening circumstances. However,

even though it all sounded risky, there was a sense among each of the journalists that

the risks taken were “calculated risks” and not completely foolhardy endeavours.

Kamal Hyder made it sound as if it was more about being smart and exercising clear

judgement when covering conflict and that it could be done in a way with minimal

risk to one’s life and health.

Duty  The most important and prominent theme which emerged from interviews was the

idea that being a journalist entailed a duty. It was this theme too which I believe acted

as a sort of coping mechanism for the journalists to deal with the difficulties

encountered in their work. Two of the journalists, Kamal Hyder and Munawer

Azeem, described their duty to their work as that of a doctor and patient. Another,

Zahir Shah Sherazi, described his work as that of a military man and that he was hired

in order to cover conflict and so must be able to deal with it as well. Hironobu

Kubota was disturbed by the fact that his country, Japan, had little coverage or

explanation of the situation in Afghanistan and seemed to think that if he could cover

events properly, show the misery and explain the injustices, public awareness might

help to encourage support for the people of Afghanistan. When I asked him about

PTSD among journalists, he said that it was “normal” and of little consequence

although he would like support. He said that he would like to quit his job as a war

correspondent but because there was a lack of quality coverage of Afghanistan would

continue with his work to help the people of the country, including his friends that

live there.

Kamal Hyder and Tahir Khan both spoke about their duty to be objective in

the face of obstacles that could compromise objectivity. Kamal Hyder related these

29

obstacles to nationalism, especially in the face of a war, that a journalist might feel

upon entering a conflict zone. He gave as an example the Iraq War and said that the

BBC only noticed their mistake of being too pro-British/American after realising that

the war was a kind of farce. He implied that this problem could have been avoided

had the BBC stuck to the objective goals of journalistic pursuit. Tahir Khan spoke of

the urgency for Pakistani news media to cover both sides of the conflict. His example

involved extrajudicial killings by the Pakistani army of civilians. He recounted a

story he covered last year during the Swat crisis18 of a shopkeeper who was killed by

the Pakistani army in Mingora19. He said that no journalist in the country reported it

because they were afraid of the army. He claimed that it was the duty of journalists to

cover both sides of the conflict.

Of special interest, some of the journalists spoke of a kind of power or quality

within humankind to endure and even thrive in the face of hardship and difficulty, and

related this quality to their abilities to report regardless of the rigors it entailed. Zahir

Shah Sherazi said that he has a “challenging type of personality” and that he did not

know where his strength came from but that it was involuntary. Kamal Hyder said

that one should think about the culture in which people report from, implying that

developing countries, and those in conflict, do not necessarily get caught up in the

trauma, whereas reporters from the US, England and Sweden might. This answer was

echoed by Munawer Azeem, Tahir Khan and Journalist X as well.

When speaking about the spirit of humankind and how it related to trauma,

Kamal Hyder said, “look at Haiti. It’s a great example. I mean, one, there’s total

pandemonium, no one knows [what’s going on], I mean they think it’s doomsday.

And then there is this, I mean what would you say... the human spirit rises above the

catastrophe to rebuild [the country and their lives] block by block... Look at the

Lebanese Civil War, for awhile there were people who wouldn’t venture out of their

houses but then it was life as usual, people had to get their groceries, some people

even died. Look at Sarajevo, ordinary pedestrians who had to run to the bakery for

bread paid the price by getting shot by a sniper. But it’s the resilience of humankind

to adapt and to be able to carry on with life”. Mr. Hyder’s answer harkened at a

quality that is not only present in journalists but the whole of humankind and

18 Millions of people were displaced in 2009 as a result of Pakistani Army operations targeting militants in the Swat Valley (UNHCR). 19 Mingora is the largest city in the Swat district of Pakistan.

30

questioned the ontological basis for which this study is grounded – that war and

conflict journalists are in disproportionate danger of psychosomatic illness and

traumatic stress. His answer seemed to challenge the original research question that

asks, “how do journalists deal with enduring threats?”, and instead ask, “what is

different among journalists and ordinary people that live in places and/or are

frequently faced with enduring threats?” It made me wonder if, perhaps, it might not

be more useful to focus on the 70-plus percent of war journalists who emerge from

and continually report on conflict unscathed and remain seemingly robust in the face

of so much danger.

Lessons  Learned  “there’s no story worth dying for”

All of the journalists regardless of their antagonism towards the idea of psychological

support and counselling, which was existent among a couple of the interviewees,

agreed that both physical and psychological support structures needed to be created

and implemented. Kamal Hyder was pleased with the physical support structures Al

Jazeera provided him and his team but said that if PTSD is a problem among conflict

and war journalists, a solution must be created. The Dawn reporters, Munawer

Azeem and Zahir Shah Sherazi, while happy with their organisation’s support said

that improvements could be made. Hironobu Kubota had a sort of vague idea about

what he would like as psychological support, which involved a friend being near him

at night upon his return trips to Japan after covering conflict. It seemed that what he

was in search of was a social support network that he could call upon when in need.

For Tahir Khan, the issue was not so much about safety and psychological

support as it was about better basic training for journalists. He expressed his disdain

for the fact that so many journalists in Pakistan did not have a good command over

their language skills, whether they reported in English or Urdu. Further, he wanted to

see the basic constructs of what is required to build a journalistic story taught to

young enterprising reporters, such as the utilisation of sources for information and

quoting those sources directly. However, he did support the creation of an NGO for

journalists but said that it should not be run by Pakistanis because of the political

nature of the industry in the country. Journalist X was the biggest supporter of an

31

NGO for journalists and said that the PFUJ and Intermedia could not be trusted. He

also felt that part of the issue involved getting life insurance for journalists. For Zahir

Shah Sherazi, the issue was more about pay. He advocated for higher pay for

journalists as they are poorly paid in Pakistan yet risk their lives for their work.

Kamal Hyder gave safety advice saying that you should “try to avoid troubled areas,

try and avoid people you don’t trust. If you’re in an area and you don’t have local

area support, you’re a fish out of water. So it’s always a good idea to do your

homework. It’s always a good idea to keep your back open in case you need to get

the hell out, always good to let your forces know... your security forces... where you

are,... try not to get in anybody’s way... [and] exercise maximum caution”.

4.  Theoretical  Discussion  

Social  Psychology  &  Security  The six themes encountered during interviews (Trauma, Lack of Support, Politics,

Sympathy, Courage and Duty) coupled with the four threats (Psychological Threats,

Historical Context, Physical Threats, and Threats from Propaganda) discovered within

the literature review can be grouped into two theoretical categories: The first involves

the six interview themes and suggests that in order to understand the relevance of

these themes in light of the issue of safety and traumatic stress among journalists, one

must investigate the psychology of war/conflict journalists. Accordingly, a

conceptual framework based in social psychology and theory emerging within

political psychology is used and asks the question, could an explanation of

war/conflict journalists socio-psychological understanding of their role as journalists

help in an effort to advocate for the physical and psychological safety of media

professionals, and if so, how could this be done? The second utilises the information

attained in answering this question and then, along with the four threats to media

personnel reported at the beginning of this paper, situates them within a theoretical

framework based in security studies, with media as the referent object, to advocate for

and bring attention to the importance of the Securitisation of Media and its Personnel.

32

The  Psychology  of  War  &  Conflict  Journalists:  A  Socio-­‐Psychological  Framework  In order to advocate for the securitisation of media personnel in Pakistan, Afghanistan

and other zones of conflict, it is helpful to understand the socio-psychological

foundations that motivate conflict journalists’ lives. Building upon advice given by

Kamal Hyder, this will be done by exploring how and why over 70 percent of conflict

journalists seem to remain resilient rather than focusing on the 29 percent who

develop PTSD and other psychological problems so to get a sense of how traumatic

stress is overcome or transcended, which could lead to clues about how it is treated.

This will be done by introducing the concepts of posttraumatic growth (PTG) and

altruism born of suffering (ABS). I will then explore the idea of “suffering for the

meaningless suffering of the other”, as proposed by Emmanuel Levinas, and argue

that this idea contributes to an understanding of the role of the conflict journalist as

based in compassion and altruistic intent and why securitisation of their physical and

mental well-being is not factored prominently into the work they do. The argument

will be backed up by anecdotal evidence within the themes that emerged during

interviews; a look into the content produced by conflict journalists and how it affects

the “discourse of global compassion”, as described by Birgitta Höijer; Anthony

Feinstein’s findings that many of the journalists he interviewed experienced a prior

suffering; and that many conflict journalists do see their sufferings, in comparison

with those of the people they cover, as insignificant or meaningless.

Kamal Hyder was sceptical about the issues of trauma and PTSD being looked

at as problematic amongst journalists in Pakistan and other developing countries. He

proposed instead that my research question be transformed to incorporate within it a

socio-psychological exploration of how and why, in despite of trauma, suffering and

PTSD, journalists in Pakistan and Afghanistan seem to remain resilient. In fact, his

response to research that documents the prevalence of PTSD among conflict

journalists focused not on the trauma itself but the aftermath, and that despite the

trauma, the quality of resilience seems to be stronger and so a more relevant subject

with which to focus on. He said of trauma, “I think it’s having an effect on people but

there’s also an insulating effect, it’s taken as a fait accompli, you know it’s going to

happen anyways, you can’t control the events unfolding on the ground so I think there

is more… exposure to trauma here and people adapt to [it]. Look at Haiti it’s a great

example, I mean, one, there’s total pandemonium, no one knows, I mean they think

33

it’s doomsday. And then there is this, I mean what would you say, the human spirit

rises above the catastrophe to rebuild block by block”. Taken in this context, it could

be assumed that Mr. Hyder views trauma and suffering amongst society in a

developing nation as a given and that it is not the suffering or trauma which defines

the individuals within that society but what they do beyond those initial sufferings,

how individuals, journalists and societies grow from their experiences.

Ervin Staub and Johanna Vollhardt’s study Altruism Born of Suffering: The

roots of Caring and Helping After Victimization and Other Trauma aims to

understand these experiences and what types of experiences before, during and after a

traumatic episode lead an individual to adopt a caring and proactive attitude toward a

suffering Other. They do this by first discussing the concept of posttraumatic growth

(PTG), which theorises about potential growth among victims of trauma, and then

introduce what they call altruism born of suffering (ABS). They found evidence that

suggests that a number of experiences lead toward ABS, including those that

encourage healing and those that encourage the victim to understand the motivations

of the harm doer, among others. They also suggested that altruism comes from

psychological changes within an individual that result from the aforementioned

experiences. These changes included a stronger conception of self, more positivity

towards others, and feelings of empathy and responsibility toward others (Staub &

Vollhardt 2008).

Certainly, the quality of resilience was pronounced among the journalists I

interviewed and was characterised as a kind of broad arch within the six themes that

emerged, in that trauma and a lack of support for physical and psychological

challenges was indicative of many of the situations they encountered, yet through

sympathy, courage and duty the journalists plodded on and even thrived. Resilience

has been defined as ‘”positive adaptation within the context of significant adversity”’

(Staub & Vollhardt 2008: 269). This definition portrayed the attitude with which

many of the journalists whom I interviewed approached their work. In fact, four out

of six journalists either laughed at the idea that PTSD is something they should be

concerned about or rejected it and attempted to redirect the focus of the study

elsewhere, such as their low pay, lack of health insurance, immediate physical threats,

or, like Kamal Hyder, a focus on the positive aspects with which people use their

sufferings to later move on and even excel. This made me ask, what is it, about how

conflict journalists see themselves, that encourages them to place themselves within

34

dangerous situations while at the same time discourages them from seeking out

psychological help when in need?

According to Emile Durkheim (1953), Sigmund Freud (1915/1961) and a

number of other social and psychological researchers, “society members who live in a

common physical and psychological context share, at least to some extent, norms,

symbols, values, and a repertoire of beliefs, emotions, and psychological

mechanisms” (Halperin et. al. 2010). Social-psychological research has shown that

groups of people that share common characteristics can create beliefs and systems of

belief that they then impart on members of their group. Social identity theory posits

that “individuals derive part of their self-esteem from the groups to which they belong

and with which they identify” (Halperin et. al 2010: 62). Similarly, the conceptual

analysis adopted here as relates to identity construction of war/conflict journalists is

based on the idea that, similar to societies, groups of individuals within the same

career and under the same societal settings can adopt and may be characterised by

collective psychological processes.

Emmanuel Levinas, who is saluted within the fields of philosophy and

international relations as one of the harbingers of a perspective toward the

construction of identity among a group of theorists known as “the Eastern Excursion”

(Neumann 1999), describes an attitude toward the self and the Other as rooted in the

experience of suffering, an attitude which could be thought of as akin to resilience.

He calls this the “interhuman order” and it based on the idea that suffering within an

individual has no meaning unless it is utilised to understand and reach out to help the

suffering of the Other. He terms this, “suffering for the useless suffering of the

other”, a definition which attempts to locate the origins of compassion within an

individual (Levinas 1998: 94). This could be helpful in understanding the role of the

conflict journalist because it could help to explain why journalists choose to subject

themselves to the dangers of conflict, despite the physical and psychological risks.

Indeed, by looking at the content produced by conflict journalists an

understanding of their purpose and motivations can be understood as grounded in a

compassionate worldview. In the “discourse of global compassion” (Höijer 2003), it

is asserted that media acts as the intermediary to facilitate discussion between

politicians, humanitarian organisations and citizens about violence and conflict that

takes place in different parts of the globe. Media’s special place within this discourse

as the intermediary distinguishes it as important and influential in that it has the power

35

to frame discourse and drive action associated with what it covers. Through the

media, politicians and citizens are met with depictions of suffering of the Other and

forced to either ignore them or include those Others within their moral conscience.

Höijer cites the power of “CNN effect”20 with regards to this influence and says that

the 1993 British air-bridge to fly people out of Sarajevo, efforts to stop the Nigerian

Civil War in the late 1960s, and humanitarian aid for drought victims in Africa in the

1980s all resulted from media coverage of those events. Höijer says that media

personnel, and subsequently a global discourse about violence and conflict, are

motivated by compassion as defined by Martha Nussbaum, which states that

“compassion… [is] a complex emotion including such cognitive beliefs that the

suffering of the other is serious, and that the suffering person does not deserve the

pain” (Höijer 2003: 20).

Levinas’ “suffering for the useless suffering of the other”, however, also

presumes that a prior suffering exists in the individual that attempts to help Others.

This notion fits with Anthony Feinstein’s findings about the types of people who

pursue a career of conflict journalism. He documented the existence of four different

motivational factors amongst conflict journalists in his seminal 2002 study, including

biochemical, environmental, political and moral factors. However, it was an

amalgamation of these different types of journalists, and more specifically the creative

ones among them that shape people’s perceptions of war, that Feinstein laid emphasis

on for understanding the motivations that drive conflict journalists. He dismissed

those other journalists who were merely motivated for money, thrill or narcissistic

reasons because they were not representative of the broader trend in identity

formation. Further, he found that a large proportion of those journalists he

interviewed had past sufferings usually involving conflict and discord within the

family. One of the journalists within Feinstein’s study says, ‘”It was what I was used

to. I grew up in it, you know, but I didn’t understand this at the time. There was no

way I could have understood this as a child, but I was reading something recently and

it just jumped off the bloody page at me. It is possible to have post-traumatic stress

disorder from your childhood. I grew up in a war zone. It was just madness. My

father would break furniture and all the stuff that goes with that. I learned at a very

early age these kinds of coping strategies, and this could explain why I now believe 20 The “CNN Effect” is a theory that posits that popular news programmes can affect policy decisions made by a governments.

36

passionately in bearing witness to war, which is not unrelated to my sense as a kid

that nobody bloody well heard me. Nobody ever heard”’ (Feinstein 2003: 75-76).

Similarly, during my discussion with Kamal Hyder, he recounted how a dimension to

his news reportage was transformed after his brother was murdered by saying, “I think

two things happen, it’s a very strange human quality. I don’t know what you call it

but when you lose your close family member it really hits hard and then I remember

when I was covering the conflict and I would see people killed and it would really

disturb me but when my own brother was shot, murdered in cold blood, I realised how

traumatic it must be for those people that lose their loved family members”.

The attitudes exemplified here, by Kamal Hyder and other interviewees within

Feinstein’s study, suggest that past sufferings experienced by conflict journalists may

act as motivational factors for their career choice. Taken in tandem with Levinas’

idea that suffering is useless unless and until it find meaning through aiding the Other,

it may also hint as to why they are reluctant to seek out psychological help. If the aim

of some conflict journalists is to find meaning for an original suffering through the

pursuit of even greater suffering found in those that are subject to the ebbs and tides

of war and conflict, then the original suffering and those experienced afterwards while

reporting in war zones will be neglected and/or ignored.

This explanation may also be helpful in revealing why conflict journalists are

thought of as stoic and removed from the trauma that surrounds them. Most of the

journalists I talked with, and even those within the literature, did view their own

sufferings as miniscule, unimportant or meaningless compared with those of the

people they covered. Robert Fisk, of The Independent of London, illustrates this

viewpoint vividly in his book Pity the Nation (2002), in which he says,

“in 1982, when the Israeli army was fighting its way up the floor of the lower Bekaa Valley, [Lebanon,] firing their artillery indiscriminately onto the villages and roads in front of them, I was driving furiously northwards to escape the path of their advance, past terrified Syrian troops whose vehicles were burning in the fields around them. At the village of Deir al-Ahmar just north of Kfar Meshki, I stopped to ask a couple if the road north had been under air attack. The ground was vibrating with explosions and oily smoke was climbing from the burning trucks to the south. The husband was studying the skies for aircraft but both he and his young wife seized me by the arm, literally propelling me into their home. ‘Stay with us,’ he said. ‘You will be all right. Don’t be afraid. We will protect you. Stay in our home.’… These were honourable, kind people – Muslim and Christian families alike – and it would dawn on some of us as the years went by that if they could endanger themselves to protect us, then we owed them something in return, that perhaps we might sometimes have to take risks with our own lives in order to report their tragedy” (Fisk 2002: 107).

37

Fisk’s sentiments about covering the war for the sake of those that are forced to live

through it intimately reflect and lend credence to the idea of identity constructed

around compassion, and suffering for the useless suffering of the Other. Fisk speaks

of something “owed” to those he covers and says, “perhaps we might… have to take

risks with our own lives in order to report their tragedy.” In this way, for Robert Fisk

and other journalists like him, the risks, difficulties, suffering and trauma encountered

in covering war and conflict is balanced out or expunged when weighed against a

suffering that exists in the Other.

With this in mind, it is easy to imagine why war and conflict journalists do

what they do. Levinas’ concept of “suffering for the useless suffering of the other”

provides a socio-psychological framework with which to understand motivational

factors that lead journalists toward a life of reportage focused on violence, conflict

and suffering. Through an ethos based in the “interhuman order”, conflict journalists

transcend their own alterity and bring meaning to their lives and their past sufferings.

In this way, it is understandable why when confronted with psychological trauma or

difficulties as a result of their work, they do not seek help. It is also helpful for

understanding how an ethos based in compassion and altruism toward the Other aids

the majority of conflict journalists to remain resilient despite the difficulties faced in

their work. And for those 29 percent of journalists who confront psychological

difficulties, studies into posttraumatic growth (PTG) and altruism born of suffering

(ABS) have potential for understanding how to deal with PTSD and other

psychological disorders.

The  Securitisation  of  Media  and  its  Personnel  in  Pakistan:  A  Security  Framework  While a socio-psychological understanding of conflict journalists’ identity formation

adds insight into how to approach individuals that seek out a career in war reportage,

critical security studies provides a framework with which to understand how to deal

with the threats21 confronted by conflict journalists in Pakistan and advocate for their

protection. Specifically, the Copenhagen School helps one to understand how media

21 These include psychological issues, the Pakistani state, physical violence and militant media propaganda.

38

and its personnel could be thought of as the referential object22 in need of

securitisation while the Welsh School provides a vision for understanding how the

politicisation of the securitisation of media could aid in the potential emancipatory

effects of being viewed within a security framework.

The Copenhagen School looks at security as a discursive construct, non-

existent until referred to through a “speech act” and complimented by a listening and

attentive audience. Ole Wæver says, “The process of securitisation is a speech act... it

is the utterance itself that is the act” (Wæver 2003: 11). Taken in this context, the

positioning of media and its personnel into a framework of security has already taken

place. The United Nations Security Council resolution 1738 says that states should

“prevent violations of international humanitarian law against civilians, including

journalists, media professionals and associated personnel”. Further, the resolution

“emphasizes the responsibility of States to comply with the relevant obligations under

international law to end impunity and to prosecute those responsible for serious

violations of international humanitarian law” and “urges all parties involved in

situations of armed conflict to respect the professional independence and rights of

journalists, media professionals and associated personnel as civilians” (IMS 2009:

42). Similarly, article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights “underlines

the responsibilities of the States, as well as other actors, to ensure that journalists and

other media workers are protected and can carry out their work unhindered” (IMS

2009: 42). This mandate provided by the UN has been taken up by a number of

international and national media rights organisations around the world, including The

Committee to Protect Journalists, Reporters without Borders and The International

News Safety Institute, to name but a few.

However, the purpose of the Copenhagen School’s deconstruction of the term

‘security’ as a speech act is to emphasise the socially constructed values and

meanings which have been built around the term so to de-securitise those issues and

escape the ‘politics of fear’ they have been imbued with. The purpose it to draw

police and military attention away from political issues so that all the hype and

paranoia associated with defence is not unmindfully applied to them (Collins 2007).

Browning and McDonald, however, note in their Securitization and Emancipation

(2007) that “in reality securitizing actors normally see it the other way round, using 22 The term ‘referent object’ is used within security studies to denote an entity that is to be securitised, such as the state, the individual or a community.

39

security speech acts precisely to put something on the political agenda (e.g. the

environment)” (13-14). For this reason, and because it is believed that securitisation

can be used to advocate for the protection of media, rather than incur unwarranted

harm to it and other individuals and groups that come into contact with it, an

exploration of the Welsh School and its reconstructive and emancipatory aspects is

discussed.

The Welsh School, like the Copenhagen School, is concerned with the socially

constructed terms and values that surround securitisation but maintains that security

can be used to raise awareness and address concerns of a range of referent objects, in

what Ken Booth calls an “emancipatory realism” (2007: 337). However, the purpose

of the Welsh School is, at first, deconstructive as well. Ken Booth’s critical security

theory outlines the procedure with which critical security analysts are to deconstruct

knowledge about traditional security forms, such as the state. This is done by

unravelling the socially produced knowledge of what constitutes an object of security

so to reveal the politics behind it. In this way, a basis by which social change is

possible can be visualised and emancipation of individuals and communities

threatened by the traditional security constructs envisioned.

As noted earlier, in the section ‘Militants’ Media & State Identity’, in this

paper, the safety and security of media and its personnel in Pakistan could be viewed

through the lens of a conflict of what it is that constitutes the Pakistani state’s identity.

Since its inception there has been a debate between scholars, politicians and citizens,

both through dialogues and actions, about whether the state is a liberal democracy, as

Muhammad Ali Jinnah23 envisioned, an authoritarian regime, as the numerous

dictators have made it, or an Islamic Caliphate, as the many jihadi groups operating

within the country would like it be (Rashid 2008; Siddiqa 2009). Using the Welsh

School’s perspective, Pakistani media could be viewed as a community of individuals

under threat from the current regressive24 conceptualisation of security as applied to

the Pakistani state. This conceptualisation, by adopting a multi-faced strategy to

protect itself from numerous threats, endangers media establishments and

professionals because it creates an environment where media professionals are killed

with impunity, where unprofessionalism (i.e. ‘militants’ media) is allowed, and even 23 The founding father of Pakistan and its first leader. 24 The Welsh School maintains that if “all knowledge is for someone and for some purpose, regressive theories are the ones that are for those presently in power with the purpose of maintaining their dominance” (Collins 2007: 63-64).

40

encouraged, to flourish, and where psychological difficulties are not even considered

within the safety frameworks that do exist (Collins 2007; IMS 2009; Interviews

2010; PIPS 2010). However, the Welsh School provides a framework by which

media can conceptualise an escape from this oppression.

The Welsh School is concerned with the emancipatory effects of securitising a

referent object and the potential those effects have if politicised. In Africa, for

example, the framing of HIV/AIDS as a threat to international security and the

subsequent politicisation of that threat by various international actors has stemmed the

potentially damaging effects of that disease on the continent. In contrast, the

politicisation of migration to Western Europe by non-Europeans has created a

difficult situation with which to constructively engage, both socially and politically,

with those migrants (Williams 2008). Similarly, the politicisation of the securitisation

of media and its personnel, both nationally and internationally, within Pakistan,

Afghanistan and other zones of conflict around the world, could create an

environment in which the physical livelihoods and mental states of well being of

journalists are better protected and cared for, resulting in better and more

comprehensive news coverage within those areas of the world that are in the greatest

need of quality news reportage.

It took the murder of 33 journalists in the Philippines, on 23 November 2009,

for the Filipino state to substantially politicise the security of journalists within the

country. However, since that time, efforts have been made to stop the killing of

journalists, which was already an endemic problem prior to the massacre, or at least

arrest and prosecute those responsible (Amnesty International 2010; Nunc 2010). In

the United States in the 1970s and early 1980s, following the Vietnam War, PTSD

among combat soldiers and difficulties with readjustment to life in the US after

fulfilling a military tour in Vietnam, became highly politicised issues as veterans

became more of a nuisance and a kind of threat to the state. Accordingly, because

politicisation of this threat was promoted among veterans and civil rights activists,

legislation was adopted that addressed counselling for PTSD, created an outreach

program for veterans and by 1981 established 137 Veteran Centers in the United

States (Scott 1993).

Similarly, it is not hard to imagine how, by adopting a framework based in the

Welsh School, the politicisation of the securitisation of media and its personnel could

lead to emancipatory effects not only for media in Pakistan but as a model for other

41

developing nations that face comparable problems. This could take place in any

number of ways. The International Media Support (IMS) report (2009) says that this

should take place through advocacy and lobbying by media organisations of

“government institutions, including the Ministry of Information; Ministry of Security;

the military authorities; and the security authorities and police in order to increase

awareness and understanding of the role of journalists and media in society” (42). It

furthers that local and international media safety organisations should band together

to create missions to Pakistan that could help in advocacy amongst government

authorities, especially with regards to the country’s media safety fund (IMS 2009).

Also, in light of the information provided by Tahir Khan (NNI), Journalist X

(freelance) and Muhammad Afzal Bajwa (The Nation), during interviews – that the

PFUJ and Intermedia are deeply politicised institutions, rending them ineffective to

journalists when in need of protection and/or support – it could be beneficial to

expose these organisations on an international level to embarrass them, and, possibly,

coax them into doing their jobs properly. Another suggestion would be to encourage

academia, specifically those concerned with media rights or regional issues, to

promote the politicisation of this topic, firstly because it is an issue of dire concern,

but also because journalists often provide first-hand scholarly source materials with

which to analyse the situation in Pakistan. The final suggestion made in this

examination would be to encourage a political party, such as Tehreek-e-Insaf

(Movement for Justice), to adopt this issue as part of their political campaign. If this

were to happen, other parties might adopt it as well or reference it in their campaigns.

The idea of Tehreek-e-Insaf adopting this issue is not implausible as the Foreign

Affairs Advisor for the party, Shireen Mazari, is also the editor of The Nation, one of

the most well known English language newspapers in the country (Pakistan Tehreek-

e-Insaf 2010).

The politicisation of the securitisation of media and its personnel in Pakistan

could be a highly effective way of addressing the many issues and concerns of

journalists in the country. Adopting an approach based in the “emancipatory realism”

of the Welsh School – which is able to bring attention to a range of referent objects in

keeping with the Copenhagen School’s concept of security as a discursive construct –

enables journalists along with national and international media organisations in

Pakistan to utilise lobbying and advocacy practices to convince the government to

direct more attention towards the issue of media security, and to reap possible benefits

42

if academia and political parties adopt the issue and address it within their scholarship

and political campaigns. If an emancipatory framework, such as the one outlined

here, were to be adopted in Pakistan, it is likely that greater security, both for the

physical and psychological well being of journalists, would be promoted, and that this

framework could provide the means for other countries to achieve similar results.

5.  Conclusion  Media personnel are under threat in Pakistan from a number of factors: These include

psychological issues, well documented by people like Anthony Feinstein and

organisations, like The Dart Center; the Pakistani state, which is often volatile

transitioning from civilian to military and back again, but also from laws created by

the state that hinder journalistic practice; physical violence from state actors, as well

as militant groups; and, finally, militant media propaganda, which indirectly causes

physical and psychological harm to journalists by supporting and even provoking

violence and animosity towards media workers. While aspects concerning physical

safety have been considered and well documented by a number of media watch and

media rights organisations, like International Media Support, The Committee to

Protect Journalists and Reporters Without Borders, the psychological aspects,

particularly the prevalence of PTSD and other psychosomatic issues amongst

journalists in conflict zones, have been neglected and/or ignored. Worldwide, as well

as in Pakistan and Afghanistan, this is often attributed to a myth that exists within the

journalistic community of the conflict journalist as a psychologically impenetrable

being hardwired to collect facts, put out copy and/or broadcast news content as if the

violence and destruction surrounding him or her were personally inconsequential.

However, based on the interviews in this study with conflict journalists in

Pakistan, conducted during March and April of 2010, along with a socio-

psychological framework for interpreting those interviews and other information

within the literature, it was found that an identity formation – among some conflict

journalists, based in altruism that seeks out suffering to find meaning within its own

existence – may also be responsible for the lack of attention paid toward the issues of

psychological stress and psychosomatic illnesses. This is important with regards to

the safety of conflict journalists because it establishes a context with which to think

about and approach these individuals, and, hopefully, create a constructive dialogue to

43

address their psychological well being, if it is indeed in danger. It was further

observed that by taking Kamal Hyder’s (Al Jazeera) advice and directing the attention

of this study away from the negative aspects of war reportage, namely the possibility

of suffering from PTSD, answers to questions posed within a negative outlook were

found in literature that attempts to approach trauma through research of its positive

aspects, i.e. through an exploration of how posttraumatic growth (PTG) and altruism

born of suffering (ABS) can be promoted among victims of traumatic stress. This too

is vital with regards to the safety of conflict journalists because it suggests new ways

in which training and therapy for journalists in combat zones could be implemented

and/or improved.

44

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49

Appendix  1  

Interview  Questions  (Hironobu  Kubota)  

o First, could you tell me your name and who you work for?

o Tell me the story of how you got into this business.

o Tell me, briefly, what your assignment is for Afghanistan this time around.

o What kind of difficulties do you face in reporting on the conflict in Pakistan

and Afghanistan? (tell me about passports being stolen) (main difficulties)

o What kind of experience have you had with danger while reporting in Pakistan

or Afghanistan?

o What do you know about PTSD (and other psychological trauma associated

with war)?

o Do you or other journalists you know suffer from psychologically distressing

ailments?

o How do you deal with stressors (threats and danger) related to your work?

(I’ve seen footage of you in Iraq being bombed. How did that affect you and

how did you deal with that stress?)

o What kind of support structures exist for reporters, such as yourself?

o What other kinds of support structures do you think are needed for journalists

covering this conflict? (What do you think is needed to empower journalists

to do their work properly?)

o By what means do you think it would be possible to create this?

o How do you see your relationships with the subjects you cover (people and

drama)?

o Why do you do what you do? (Tell me about the 750 refugees you saved.)

o Why is the work that you (and other journalists) do important?

How do you see yourself (your role) in the conflict that is unfolding in this

region?

50

Appendix  2  

Interview  Questions  (Kamal  Hyder,  Munawer  Azeem,  Tahir  Khan  &  Journalist  X)  

o First, could you tell me your name and who you work for?

o How did you get into this business?

o What kind of assignments do you mainly work on?

o What kind of difficulties do you face in reporting on the conflict in Pakistan

and Afghanistan?

o What kind of experience have you had with danger while reporting in Pakistan

or Afghanistan?

o What do you know about PTSD (and other psychological trauma associated

with war)?

o Do you or other journalists you know suffer from psychologically distressing

ailments?

o How do you deal with stressors (threats and danger) related to your work?

o What kind of support structures exist for reporters, such as yourself?

o What other kinds of support structures do you think are needed for journalists

covering this conflict? (What do you think is needed to empower journalists

to do their work properly?)

o By what means do you think it would be possible to create this?

o How do you see your relationships with the subjects you cover (people and

drama)?

o Why do you do what you do?

o Why is the work that you (and other journalists) do important?

o How do you see yourself (your role) in the conflict that is unfolding in this

region?

51

Appendix  3  

Interview  Questions  (Zahir  Shah  Sherazi)  

o First, could you tell me your name and who you work for?

o Can you explain what happened on April 5th in Peshawar?

o What was the experience like for you personally?

o Following the incident what happened?

o Did you take any time off work?

o What was Dawn’s response to your experience?

o What was your editor’s response?

o Was there any kind of support structure made available to you?

o What do you know about PTSD (and other psychological trauma associated

with war)?

o Was this easy to deal with? How did you deal with it personally?

o Do you think that proper support structures were made available to you or do

you wish that something else had been available?

o Do you think that support structures need to be made available to journalists

like yourself that go through a potentially traumatic episode?

o How do you think this could be created?

52

Appendix  4  

Interview  Transcription  

M = Interviewer (myself)

Hironobu  Kubota  (freelance)  16  March  2010  My name is Hironobu Kubota. I’m just a freelance photographer and freelance

photojournalist.

M: Who do you normally work for?

I just freelance photograph. I sell my photo to the magazine and newspaper and

sometimes I make a TV program, especially in Afghanistan and Iraq.

M: Tell me the story of how you got into this business.

My major in university was physics so I started working as a photographer as a part-

time job. Normally, older photographer don’t teach me too much things. But I ask

why you put a light here and then work with them for almost half a year and I can get

a good skill, almost like a professional so I work at a studio in Japan. At that time I

had a interest in the Middle East and that area so I started to try to make a tourist

magazine. So I travelled around a lot of Asian countries, from Thailand, Malaysia

and Singapore. So I made a tourist magazine and at that time I met one Pakistani guy

at Singapore. He told me Pakistan is a very good country. That time I didn’t know

any information about Pakistan. I never believe him. I told him, I don’t want to go to

that like uh, desert country. At that time he a little bit angry. He said, no no no,

Pakistan is not a desert country. We have four season, green months and I said, oh is

it real? And then I visit Pakistan next year. At that time he guided me all over

Pakistan, Islamabad, Karachi, northern area, mountain area also. And then finally I

separate to him at Rawalpindi. At that time he told me if you go to Peshawar you can

see refugee people. But at that time I don’t know what is refugee, I don’t know the

word refugee so I asked him, what is refugee and he told me, that there are many

people that have run away from Afghanistan to Pakistan. They live in a tent. Oh, that

is refugee. I think at that time it is very photogenic so at that time I been to Peshawar.

I enter the refugee camp without any permission. I know, like me, a foreigner, we

53

need permission to enter the refugee camps but I don’t want to get permission and go

directly into the Afghan refugee camps. At that time it was a very miserable situation.

At that time it was 1997. So during the Taliban regime. At that time many of the

Afghan people ran away from Afghanistan and came to Pakistan. So at that time

there was not enough support from UN, from NGO. Everyday everyday there were

many children who die so I was very surprised. I never know that situation, I never

seen like that situation in an Asian country. There are many poor people in an Asian

country but refugee is a special situation. They cannot live in their own country, have

to move to the next country and then they don’t have enough equipment, enough

supplies. So I want to tell that situation to Japanese media but at that time most of the

Japanese media don’t have an interest in the Afghanistan situation. So I decided to

make an exhibition. So the Canon maker supported me and then I can do the

exhibition in Japan. First, we started at Tokyo. It was 2001 August. And then moved

to Hokkaido. It was September. As you know, at that time Afghanistan war started.

And then suddenly the Japanese media, many interested in the Afghanistan situation.

And then take an interview from me, and then I finished the exhibition and then went

to Afghanistan again. It just happened. I met just one Pakistani people. If I hadn’t

met him, I would have never come here and I never meet you.

M: Could you tell me briefly what’s your assignment for this time in Afghanistan?

I continue to report about Afghanistan situation since 1997 so every year the situation

is getting worse and worse. So I’d like to continue reporting about the situation and

this year our Japanese government decided to pay money to Afghanistan government

to support Afghanistan people but you know, nobody knows the real situation in

Afghanistan. We have to tell the real situation to the Japanese people and people have

to decide how to do that, how to get their opinion to the government but no

information. So most of the Japanese media, big company, like television, newspaper

don’t want to tell that. So, like me, freelance, we have to do it. Then I have a good

relationship with many Afghanistan people, not only journalists, I’m easy to enter

Afghanistan, and then take reporting. So I will try to tell the real situation, reporting

to the Japanese people.

M: If you go to Afghanistan, who protects you?

54

My friend, so there are many friends in Afghanistan, especially some of them are

former Taliban (indecipherable). They support me too much. So sometimes near the

border there are new Taliban groups there. So it’s a little bit danger in that area. But

in Kabul Jalalabad, and another area, I’m safety. There are many Afghanistan people

who support me.

M: What kind of difficulties do you face in reporting in Pakistan and Afghanistan?

You know, Japanese media only have an interest in war and terrorism and such things.

The Afghanistan war started in 2001 and then 2002, 2003, they still have an interest in

the situation in Afghanistan. But you know now 9 years passed and nobody want

interest in Afghanistan situation. So if I get a good information from Afghanistan, I

don’t have a way to report them. Normal media, television, magazine, newspaper,

they don’t want to treat that. So it’s very difficult for me to tell the real situation. To

take a photo and movie is easy for me but to show these things to the Japanese people

it’s very big, like a wall… no connection. Before they wanted to make a special

program but now they don’t want to do that.

M: What kind of experiences with danger have you had in Pakistan & Afghanistan?

So many times, in Pakistan, sometimes Pakistani police watch me and then maybe the

Ministry of Information, they check my behavior and sometimes they get into

guesthouse and hotel and check everything. Sometimes I am very scared. And in the

refugee camps they don’t allow to take pictures in a miserable situation. So

sometimes problems with Pakistani police. And then in Afghanistan, the first time I

was arrested in the Taliban groups. I have a camera without permission. They take

me to their office and they ask me, why you come here and things like that. But they

recognize me and they take me to Jalalabad and Kabul but unfortunately at that time

they don’t allow me to take picture but they show me like a guide Jalalabad and

Kabul. Sometimes the Afghanistan army wants to arrest me because I have a very big

camera and movie also. They ask me too much and what I doing here but I have

permission. They don’t know that permission. They cannot read and they don’t know

what organization gave me permission. Sometimes a misunderstanding they want to

send me to the office and want to send me to a jail. But I never see a serious trouble.

Just only one time in Kandahar. There were US strikes near the city. At that time

there was very big noise coming and a big strong wind coming to the window of my

55

hotel. So a little bit danger but not so much. At some time, it was not American but

some kind of Afghanistan group want to shoot me but at that time one of my friends

saved me in front of me. They support me too much and they push me and they

protect me and then he contacted with another person, he’s Japanese, don’t shoot him,

like that. I was safety. So it’s not so much danger, only one, two times.

M: What do you know about PTSD?

I think it’s normal. Our Japanese soldier also been to Iraq. And they come back to

Japan and they soon get angry like a bomb is in his house and some of them kill

themselves. Because of, how do you say in English, scare, and afraid too much and

their brain is a little bit broken. They have trauma.

But not only soldier, journalist like me face the same situation. Work in Afghanistan

and work in Iraq, at that time it’s okay but after going back to Japan I couldn’t sleep

well, and sometimes I wake up only small noise so sensitive and so seriously. Then,

especially after coming back from the Iraqi war, I’m not such a violent person, but

that time I soon, like, get angry. It’s maybe like some trauma. So most of the soldier

do like PTSD, I understand him.

M: So how do you deal with this?

Just only one time I went to hospital. At that time I couldn’t sleep well for over one

month, just only one hour, two hours. It’s like a bad dream coming and then wake up

and like (gasping for breath), like this. And I didn’t like to go to hospital but finally I

decided to go. And then they gave me medicine for sleep and a tranquilizer . But

know it’s almost okay, after one month, two months, it’s a very dangerous situation

for me.

After coming back to Japan, every time, every time. If I go, this time also, I will go to

Afghanistan tomorrow. And then two weeks and then going back to Japan, and then

maybe one day later, two days later, I couldn’t sleep well and see the, sometimes, bad

dream.

M: So the biggest effect was Iraq for you, because I saw video footage of you being

bombed… How do you deal with that if during the day you’re videotaping bombs

and American soldiers beating people, how do you deal with the stress?

56

About the Iraqi war, I entered Iraq one month before the war started. At that time I

had many activities to stop the war. At that time, many foreigners came to Baghdad

to stop the war, like human shields and I take movie from that and then waiting the

situation and then the US decided to start the war. This is 2003, 20th March, in the

morning. So the American president decided to give 48 hours but after 48 hours they

didn’t start the war and myself and other Iraqi people [were saying] oh it’s okay, but

at that time in the morning time, almost 5 o’clock, the first missile coming with big

sound and then it started. The first day only 7 missile coming to Baghdad, one of

those, I forget the name of the missile, bunker buster! [When it dropped] there was no

sound, it goes down to the ground and then it was like an earthquake in my hotel.

Then the next day, the 21st, it’s very heavy bombing, continuously 7 hours, after

finishing the Iraqi war, I checked the media that day, 3000 bombing, just only one

night. It’s heavy heavy bombing. I was staying at hotel about 3 kilometers away

from Saddam palace. I almost gave up my life so 7 hours continuous bombing. It’s

like my brain is also crazy. So at that time, I reported continuously to the Japanese

TV with a satellite phone. So they told me please go to the shelter but I refused. If I

go to the shelter and then there is bombing and then I was dead, it’s just dead. If I’m

going to die, I want to die while connected to the Japanese, so still I was reporting

continuously. But that next day after finish the bombing, I couldn’t do nothing, I

couldn’t moving, I didn’t want to talk to anybody, like this, (he lets his body go limp).

And then 21st night, starting bombing again. That situation continued one week. One

of my Iraqi friend’s also had some trauma and then his children also. She cannot go

to school anymore. She cannot go out from the house. I think it’s very big trauma.

It’s very miserable and many normal people was killed. And then US soldiers came

up to Baghdad and they want to control everything.

But sometimes they arrest normal people and ask them you are terrorist or not, I

showed you that movie, one guy, high school, was arrested US soldier, He was

arrested two nights and hit him and ask everything about but he’s just fighting with

another friend but use gun. That is Iraqi. Just [pretend] fighting and shooting and

gun but US soldier. But he’s not terrorist. But US soldier arrest him and two days

and ask him too much and too much. He also like trauma (points to his temples). I

met him 3 days later and he could not speak. His mother ask him and he slowly

slowly speaking. It’s not only one case, there are many case in Iraqi people situation

in 2003.

57

M:What kind of support structures exist for reporters such as yourself?

I don’t have any support because I’m a freelance journalist. I have to do everything

by myself. If I go to the hospital, I have to pay by myself. Nobody support me.

M: What kind of support structures do you think should be there?

After doing my work and going back to Japan, I need maybe somebody’s help. It’s

not medicine. I need somebody beside me, especially in the night time. So I live in

Tokyo alone, separate from my parent and sister. So I’m alone in the night time.

Sometimes I’m afraid too much. At that time, it’s not medicine, I need some friend.

If some friend is beside me, it’s okay. I’m like comfortable. But sometime, it’s not

possible. As you know, most of the Japanese people is very busy. Sometimes my

friend cannot help me. So I need many many friends. Today, this guy, today this

guy, like this.

M: So you think you need like a more social network to help you?

Yes, that’s right. Sometimes we need medicine but in my case it’s not medicine.

Sometimes it’s peoples’ kindly friendship… kindness. If I feel a friend’s kindness, I

feel better without any medicine. So I don’t want to take medicine. I don’t like.

M: What could be done to empower journalists like yourself?

It’s a very big problem. Not only me, there are many freelance journalists that want

to report everything like a real situation. So they do good work and then pay the

money themselves and do a good result. Unfortunately, not only Japan but European

country and other country, just only fashionable things want to be reported. Like this

time, the Haiti earthquake, but there are many many accidents all over the world, we

have to tell about all those things but media don’t have any interest in that. So now

that time is a little bit different compared with before. Now we have internet. So

sometimes we can make a report using the internet website and the blog everythings.

So unfortunately we cannot get good money, sometimes no money. It’s a very good

way. Sometimes all the media cannot use my result. It’s okay I can do the report

from the internet. So I can show not only Japanese but all over the world peoples. So

just only one thing, how to get the money from the internet. But to show is easy

compared with before.

58

I want to tell you so many times I suffered from trauma so I want to give up this job

and stop this job finally I couldn’t stop this job so I think, “why?” I think by myself. I

think that I’m lucky to have been born in Japan and been alive for over 40 years. I

have seen many children who were born and soon died in Afghanistan. Since 9 years

have passed, no matter how terrible the [indecipherable] in Afghanistan, Japanese

media will not try to report. It is us, freelance journalists. For that reason, I couldn’t

stop this work so that we can provide people with information. Since Afghanistan

continued in a war for 23 years so it was behind from neighbor countries. Finally, the

Taliban conquered and controlled Afghanistan. As is often the case with another

country, including Japan, it cannot help being [indecipherable]. It took about 200

years for Japan to democratize itself. Afghanistan should have taken the same way as

Japan. However, developed neighboring countries could not wait for Afghanistan’s

development. As a result, as you know, it is now in a state of war. And what’s worse

some terrorists, including Al Qaeda, get into Afghanistan and many civilians normal

people are killed. It’s compared with last time, 23 years ago, it’s worse now. So I

think I have to, somebody tell the real situation. For that reason I couldn’t stop my

job. But really I want to stop this job. Because this time I borrowed money from the

bank, about 2000 US dollars, and then to take picture movie everything and then bring

back to Japan. I don’t know if I can get a good result or not. Sometimes 2000 US

dollars is minus. If I sell the picture then I will pay back. But I think it’s almost

impossible. If I sell about one picture and then writing. It costs about 500 or 600 US

dollars. It’s not enough for me.

M: Can you imagine or envision any way that this situation could be made better?

No, I cannot imagine but as I told you the internet is one key point.

M: What is your role in the unfolding conflict? How do you see yourself in all of

this?

If I can’t get money, I want to continue to report on Afghanistan because there are

many friends and they support me and sometimes they have good relationship with

me. So compared with Japanese people, Afghanistan people are sometimes better

than Japanese people. They cannot speak Japanese, sometimes they cannot speak

English. We are a very different culture but I don’t know why they support me and

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they like me too much. For that reason, I want to continue reporting about

Afghanistan. Without any money, without any result I want to continue to do that.

-­‐ - -

Hironobu left to Afghanistan for two weeks and returned to Islamabad on 2 April

2010. He was quite distressed upon his return his friend, Kosuke Tsuneoka, was

kidnapped that same day. They had been together the day before but upon

Hironobu’s arrival back in Pakistan, his friend had been kidnapped. Hironobu

planned to return to Japan but decided to stay on in Pakistan and return to Afghanistan

because he believed that he is one of the only people that could successfully negotiate

Kosuke Tsuneoka’s release. Hironobu has many Taliban friends although the Taliban

has not claimed responsibility for this kidnapping.

While Hironobu was in Afghanistan, somebody tried to kidnap him as well.

Hironobu said that in all his years visiting Afghanistan since 1997, now was the most

dangerous. He said that in the centre of Kabul, a place that would normally be safe,

people dressed in police clothes walked up to him and asked for his ID. He showed it

to them and they handcuffed him and ordered that they follow him behind a building.

While being escorted away, Hironobu asked to see their IDs too, which they did not

show him. Hironobu concluded that they must be fake police and so once behind a

building, where he sensed danger, he kicked and punched the person leading him, and

ran away. His handcuff was sawed off at the Japanese embassy.

Kamal  Hyder  (Al  Jazeera)  5  April  2010  My name is Kamal Hyder, Al Jazeera correspondent, local based correspondent for Al

Jazeera, since the channel went on air, a number of years ago, almost 4 years to be

precise.

M: I wonder how you got into this business?

Well, I don’t know if business in the right word for it but I was a student of

international relations and took an interest in regional studies starting with Middle

East politics, the invasion of Afghanistan, because I was a university student at

Karachi University when things boiled over. So for me, it was a personal interest in

regional affairs and my fascination with Afghanistan took me into Afghanistan during

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the Taliban era to see for myself what was transpiring on the ground. And one thing

led to another. I started working as a freelance journalist. I would cross into

Afghanistan, I would work with The New York Times, Time Magazine, BBC, ITN,

the Brazilians, the Japanese, I mean it was a whole variety of people I worked with

and eventually CNN gave me an offer to help them set up a bureau in Afghanistan

because that was a very difficult time so as you can see I blended in pretty well and

was able to get CNN the permission to have a bureau and to be able to cover the war,

and the Bamiyan bombing, from Bamiyan to the 9/11 destruction, to post-9/11. CNN

was possibly the only channel, except for Al Jazeera, that was able to report from the

conflict zone. Everybody else was shut out. So that was my beginning as a

professional journalist, before that I was a freelance journalist, and I still say I enjoyed

that time because I worked with the world almost. And as I said from the Brazilians

to the Japanese to the Germans to the Swiss. I wrote for MSNBC. I worked with

some of the American channels as well so it was a great experience. I was a war

correspondent. I was working pre, during, post 9/11, as a war correspondent inside

Afghanistan.

The point is that whenever you cover a conflict if you go ahead with patriotic fervor

or something you find in the end that somebody or the other will start back and say,

‘wait a minute, is that objective?’ I think you saw that with the BBC after Iraq. There

was a realization that they went a bit over the top and it hurt them, there were major

changes. So I think that in retrospect people go into war with a lot of rhetoric and

trying to create a case… (interruption)

So the whole point is that a reporter, a journalist is a witness to history. And therefore

sooner or later people will find whether that was objective or not. I think in retrospect

it’s always easier to look at the critical analysis. So ‘A’ I think the barriers were

broken because I think the Americans also realized this is a professional channel [Al

Jazeera], which is a great experiment because we’ve got people from all over the

world. We’ve got people from CNN, there are people from ITN, Fox News, from the

world and it’s a great experiment how different countries, different cultures, can come

under one roof, and work as one team. I think it’s a great experiment. And so far it

seems to have earned the respect of the viewers. It’s always a great challenge for a

network to take off but we’ve breached a lot of barriers and the barriers are breaking

down even in the United States. My sister, she’s in the US, and keeps telling me that

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they’re able to get at least an hour of Al Jazeera news in Illinois and other states.

Canada’s given permission so I think more and more people will view us and I think

the mood has changed also in the United States because it’s very easy to lead anybody

into war but very difficult to get them out of a war. And I think criticisms of wars

start when there’s defeat at hand. I think there’s a critical feeling in the United States

that this war’s not worth it. It’s a phony war. It’s a neo-conservative war and the

American people have paid far too much a price for it. The people of Iraq have paid a

dear price and I think so have the Americans, economically it has got them nowhere,

and they’re nowhere near winning the war, and Iraq is still a bleeding wound in the

Middle East. So I think there is a change of heart, a change of thinking and the

average man is more worried about his welfare, his Medicare, his own priorities,

rather than a war without a timeline.

M: What kind of difficulties do you face in reporting about the conflict here in

Pakistan and Afghanistan?

Well, I think the most dangerous part of the job is always the risk to one’s life cause

this is a battle zone, it’s a war zone and so you have to be very careful about where

you go and where you don’t go and what kind of calculated risk you’re going to take.

So there are certain difficulties, there are certain no-go areas. For example, if it’s a

combat zone, so if you’re going in you have to go through the military. And if you go

in through the other side, you’ll be under a lot of trouble because ‘A’ you’ll be under

attack, by the military… (interruption)…

Let’s say, for example, you’re covering the tribal area, you need to have substantial

local connections that you feel safe with that you know will not be a risk for you.

And so we normally do take calculated risks. I don’t think that when it’s too

dangerous, one doesn’t like to venture and I always tell my teams “There’s no story

worth dying for”… (interruption)

M: What kind of experiences have you had with danger?

Well, I was during my CNN days, I was covering the war, I was in Kandahar. Before

Kandahar, I sneaked across the border to Kunar, which was eastern Afghanistan and

so when the borders were sealed I was already inside and I would say that possibly

that covering the war was dangerous because ‘A’ the cities were under bombardment.

I was in Kandahar the later part of the war and so there was always a risk of being hit.

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The other problem was that obviously there was a lot of anger so we had to be careful

that we don’t sort of touch raw nerves because in a state of war you’re in a different

territory that is not necessarily your home country. I had the advantage of being able

to speak the local language so for me it was a big plus. But having said that I still was

not an Afghan in Afghanistan, I was a Pakistani in Afghanistan, and because I was

reporting for CNN. CNN was seen as an American mouthpiece so it entailed more

problems but having said all that I think we were able to do our job with relative ease

despite the risks and carry on with our work. I think we did that because we tried to

be very fair and objective and not become a party to the war so at the end of the day,

both sides didn’t have any grudges and I think to my mind that was a great success.

M: So besides that time you don’t see any problems with safety or anything?

Well, safety’s always a concern but you know with experience you try to avoid

troubled areas, try and avoid people you don’t trust. If you’re in an area and you

don’t have local area support, you’re a fish out of water. So it’s always a good idea to

do your homework. It’s always a good idea to keep your back open in case you need

to get the hell out, always good to let your forces know in case you’re in the middle of

a combat zone, your security forces need to know where you are. And we try not to

get in anybody’s way because I think that today if you’re caught in a crossfire,

nobody will give a damn. So we try to exercise maximum caution. So there’s always

a threat and we’re not the only one’s under threat. Ordinary citizens are under threat.

And so we always say that if individuals are under threat I think our job entails a

certain amount of calculated risk. And so we don’t try to become danger cowboys or

don’t try to get an adrenaline rush. It’s more of an attempt to try to handle it in a

sober manner where you save your team and you save yourself and try not to take too

any chances.

M: So you’re working in an environment of risk quite often and you’re covering

people that have experienced traumatic episodes, and I wonder how you deal with the

trauma that’s around you, like how you personally deal with it?

I think two things happen, it’s a very strange human quality. I don’t know what you

call it but when you lose your close family member it really hits hard and then I

remember when I was covering the conflict and I would see people killed and it

would really disturb me but when my own brother was shot, murdered in cold blood, I

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realized how traumatic it must be for those people that lose their loved family

members, you know loved ones, be it a father, a dad, a mother, a child, you know. So

I think you can relate to the fact that people are hurt when there is a trauma. And you

have to be sensitive enough to understand that hurt, not to, you know some people

might be interested in the report itself but we are also interested in the sensitivities of

the people. You try not to suddenly spring up there with a huge beta cam and say,

guys can I see the dead bodies, you know. It’s always disturbing but I think you get

used to it, it’s part of the job.

M: What kind of support structures exist for reporters such as yourself?

Well, I think we’re more privileged than some of the local media guys because the

local media guys don’t have the resources and television is a relatively new

phenomena, particularly private news channels. And so what happens is that ‘A’

there’s lack of awareness, ‘B’ there’s lack of training, 3, uh, a lack of depth to be able

to understand the propensity of the problem. So the local media is very vulnerable.

Foreign media itself I think does have a certain criteria, which may not you know, for

example life insurance, for that matter evacuation support or medivac. All those

things are looked after. I mean I’m so happy that we’ve not had to deal with a

situation like that but God forbid that it did happen, we know that we’d have a

medivac, we know that the network would look after us. Definitely we seem to have

more plus points and more support elements than many of the local networks. So

that’s not an issue and whenever we do go, we weigh the pros and cons and our

networks never tell us actually that you have to go. I think at the end of the day it is

the choice of the correspondent and whether he thinks it is safe enough. The support

element is fairly good, I would say brilliant with Al Jazeera, at par with any other, I

would say.

M: I wonder if there are psychological support structures, like if you covered

something and met some people that were particularly traumatized, maybe you would

want to go to a counselor or something?

Well, I think you know, I don’t know. I think for someone my own age, you know

I’m not that young anymore. You know as they say, “too old to rock’n’roll and too

young to die”. I would say that I don’t know whether there is posttraumatic stress

disorder that effects us some way or another indirectly. I’m sure it affects everybody

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but at the same time I think you also understand the nature of the job and evaluate

whether or not you can cope with it. You know sometimes it’s very gory to go and

cover these incidents where people have been blown into little pieces. You know it’s

very gruesome work. So I think you have to realize whether you have the capacity to

do this. It’s more like a doctor’s job frankly. When a doctor sees a trauma gash, he’s

more worried about how to solve the problem, rather than get carried away by the

trauma so and I think we all have our ways of unwinding. I like to go, you know,

back to my farm and take some time out but I’m sure effects a lot of people. So far, I

don’t think I’ve been affected terribly by it. And I know it’s not the kind of stuff that

everybody would like to do. But it’s part of the job unfortunately.

M: This is what I’m interested in. There’s new research that’s come out that says that

over a quarter of war and conflict journalists suffer from PTSD. I’m not saying that

everybody does…

No, you’re absolutely right, in the sense that we’re all human in the end. And let me

give you an example, today’s bomb blast in Peshawar, I talked to the Dawn

correspondent and he says to me, “This was devastating”. Because the explosion

literally happened a few hundred meters from him and he thought, he was surprised

how he survived because he saw people falling around him. So that sort of experience

would shake anybody and you’re absolutely right, an infrastructure to help such

people if they begin to show signs of stress disorder. I don’t know, I think that’s

definitely lacking here. As I said, it’s definitely a conscious when you’re a conflict

reporter. You know what to expect and sometimes it’s gruesome. But the sad part is

you’re a witness to history and so you have to be, to an extent, be able to take it. So if

you, I remember my brother, my elder brother, if he ever saw blood he would faint.

So I don’t think that’s a reporter’s job, you know. Even though, he may be a brilliant

reporter. The fact is that if you have certain weaknesses you have to remodify your

life

I think you’re absolutely right that someone who may be in a conflict zone for too

long, would start feeling the effects, and I always tell people that journalists go there

by choice. People who are stuck there have no choice. So I think the way they take

that trauma is very different than a journalist. A journalist becomes an eyewitness to

show the true/real face of war, or conflict, or tragedy for that matter.

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M: The way I’m looking at it, I’m kind of contextualizing it within a myth in the

journalism industry that says that journalists should be these kind of strong, kind of

stalwart, stoic people that go into these places, and the rates of PTSD among conflict

journalists are quite high whereas a doctor will go into the same zone but they’ll be

trained whereas journalists are often not trained, and even trained how to deal with the

emotional issues of trauma, like doctors, firemen, police, they have much lower levels

as compared with journalists.

I think you have to also have to look at the cultures that we operate in. For example

someone from Western Europe or a part of the United States and has never

experienced anything traumatic, have a relative safety record, you know where things

like that don’t happen. But you know in the third world and in this particular region,

a lot of people see this everyday on their television screens. My little son, you know

he’s 8 years old, he would come and tell me and say, you know dad there’s been a

suicide attack, and when we were kids you know we never saw stuff like that on

television. And they get more perturbed than we do because they know we’re also

going to the same area to report. There’s always a concern. I think it’s having an

effect on people but there’s also an insulating effect, it’s taken as a fait acompli, you

know it’s going to happen anyways , you can’t control the events unfolding on the

ground so I think there is more, let’s say, exposure to trauma here and people adapt to,

look at Haiti it’s a great example, I mean 1 there’s total pandemonium, no one knows,

I mean they think it’s doomsday. And then there is this, I mean what would you say,

the human spirit rises above the catastrophe to rebuild block by block. I think it’s an

inbuilt human mechanism that you try and modify your life, look at the Lebanese

Civil War, for a while there were people who wouldn’t venture out of their houses,

but then it was life as usual, people had to get their groceries, some people even died,

Look at Sarajevo, ordinary pedestrians who had to run to the bakery for bread paid the

price by getting shot by a sniper. But it’s the resilience of humankind to adapt and to

be able to carry on with life.

M: So would you say that there’s not a need for psychological support structures for

journalists?

Well, I think there’s always a need because when there’s a problem there has to be a

solution. And so I think that solution would definitely be very welcome because I

think not many people have looked into this. It’s a matter of great concern. It should

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be looked into. I think we have to look at how many reporters have been in the

combat zone, how many of them, I don’t think there’s been a very serious effort on

that front. So if there is a problem, I think that there should be a solution as well.

And it would go a long way in alleviating these problems if people are suffering from

them. I think media organizations should have workshops on how to deal with trauma

in the first place, to prepare some of their correspondents, and journalists, when they

send them to a conflict zone, what they can expect…

Shall we take a pizza break?

M: How do you see your relationships with the subjects you cover, with the people

and the trauma?

Well, I’ll tell you one thing, as far as Al Jazeera’s concerned because of our style.

We’re not seen to be intruders or curious enough to make the people feel

uncomfortable. I’ve seen and I think it also takes personal skill, it differs from

reporter to reporter, but I think part of the essence of journalism is to have a friendly

attitude. Without that attitude, you’re nowhere. And I find that sometimes, things

like humor, break the ice, you sort of make the other people feel that you’re not there

as an intruder but one who’s come out to find out the truth. And Al Jazeera’s really

big on the people’s voice, as to what the ordinary people have to say and how they

feel, as opposed to some big talking heads. So I think in that way and because we like

to report as fair as possible by not grinding axes, we find that normally people respect

us in the end. So if we go there we’re seen as friends and I’ve always said about

Afghanistan and in the tribal territories that if you go as a friend or are construed as a

friend, you feel safety, you feel that people will actually open up to you. But if you

are seen as someone with an agenda, then it’s your worst nightmare. So it’s how

comfortable you feel how much you trust those people, and whether you are seen to

be fair to what you’re saying because if it’s not based on fact, the first challenge is

going to come from the locals, this is a lot of BS. So we try not to get carried away

by jargon, not get carried away by you know biases, we try to be very simple, and as

they say, “[indecipherable] from the horse’s mouth” so to speak. Even though that

gets [indecipherable] sometimes by the government in power. It gets us into trouble

sometimes with the government because we don’t like to represent any particular

point of view or support any particular point of view.

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M: So things happen sometimes with the government?

Yea, well if you’re critical, they may be very angry. But again, in all fairness,

Pakistan has relatively free media. I mean if you look at the rest of the Arab world or

the Middle East, I think we’re miles ahead. Even though there’s a lot of work that

needs to be done. People need to be more tolerant of other points of view. So while

you may have a lack of toleration, you do have a very open-minded journalism which

sometimes becomes a nightmare even for the government. But I think in all fairness I

think it would be correct to say that relatively Pakistan is better off than many, many,

countries.

Munawer  Azeem  (Dawn)  7  April  2010  My name is Munawer Azeem and I am working with the Dawn newspaper for about

the last 7 years and my particular beats are crime and some other topics but basically

I’m covering crime.

M: How did you get into this business?

Accidently, actually I’m a masters in business administration but I was not satisfied

with the job maybe for my nature or something else and in 2002 I got a chance to

enter into journalism and before 2002 I never read newspapers and if I got a chance to

read a newspaper I only read sports related stories or showbiz. Otherwise I never

looked at newspapers and then accidently somebody offered me a chance to join

journalism and particularly the crime beat and I accepted the offer so I’m here.

M: So what kind of experience have you had with danger while reporting?

Actually, during 7 years I never met with any danger situation except for some

threatening calls in the reply to some stories. Yes, our sixth sense is alarming

whenever we are covering any bombing incidents in Islamabad so in here people take

it as a drama and not as an incident. So a large number of people are coming to the

spot to witness what is going on there after the blast. So we are just very much

careful what happen if the follow-up blast would take place. Then in the result of a

following blast then the death toll will be much bigger. So if you’re talking about

danger we have just this little fear. And one other thing, in Islamabad, we journalists

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covered the Lal Masjid event, the mosque here, near Apbarra, G-6, the military forces

and para-military forces launched this operation, called Operation Silent, against the

Lal Masjid. So we were in the middle of the road and the paramilitary forces and the

police were fighting on the one side and the militants are fighting on the side of the

Lal Masjid and sometimes we saved our lives by laying on the road. This was a very

dangerous situation and we had no protection like Western journalists. At that time,

we have no bullet-proof jackets or masks to save from teargas shells. It’s quite

difficult but we did our job. At that time, I fell on the road unconscious and after

regaining consciousness and returning to my office my boss was very angry at me.

He told me, ‘why are you going to such place without precautionary measures. I do

not need news. Such kind of situation in the future I do not need witnesses. This is a

very encouraging statement of my boss.

Such kind of violent protest took place in the middle of March. We are journalists,

photographers and law enforcement. We were caught and surrounded by the angry

mob. And we were on road and we’re surrounded by all 4 directions. They pelted us

with stones. Luckily, we were saved but various police personnel were injured and

we were covering the issue without any protection. We were just wearing pant-shirt

and nothing else. Sometimes it’s very challenging or dangerous. It depends on

experience. I have 7 years experience. I know something about how to handle such

situation, protest, how to cover the protest, how to cover the blast incident, how to

cover a shoot-out between two groups. But a fresh journalist sent out to cover, he

may be the victim during the…

M: So what do you know about PTSD?

Gradually we are used to… What about doctors? Daily the operate but if you asked

somebody to stand next to the operation bed, he may suddenly collapse. Medical

Legal Officers are daily cutting bodies, and taking body parts from the body. That’s

why we are also used to, we have no such word in our life. We are habitual for it.

We have seen badly mutilated body.

M: So do you think you or any other journalists suffer in any way, mentally?

Maybe in Pakistan journalists are facing problems early in their careers. But when

you go through more experience it’s useless in our… maybe I’m a crime reporter or

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maybe someone who’s covering the national assembly or a political beat has different

issues and maybe if he’s sent to cover crime, maybe he’ll feel stress but not us.

M: So how do you deal with the stress of incidents like the Lal Masjid after you go

home in the evening?

Particularly, I am talking about myself but when I go home, I forget my work and I

set aside my work and enjoy time with my family. The majority of journalists are

taking stress from what would happen if I miss some story, if I miss some

information,

M: What kind of safety structures exist at Dawn? I’ve heard that Dawn is exceptional

in that they provide training and safety?

I also narrated one incident for you during the Lal Masjid when my boss was very

angry at me and he told me that I should not cover such stories in such circumstances,

you should not cover the stories, first you adopt your safety measures and then cover

the story.

We adopted some safety measures after the Lal Masjid because the Lal Masjid was

the first of its kind in the capital. After the incident many organizations adopted

security measures, provided gadgets, including bulletproof jackets, helmets and other

stuff. So whenever going to cover such events we are taking all the security steps.

But after Lal Masjid I don’t think any other incident took place in the capital.

M: But I wonder if there’s training for you guys on how to approach conflict?

There is a lack of training in Pakistan, how to cover such events, or how to interview

the victims.

M: Doesn’t Dawn have this training? I thought it did.

I don’t think so, no one in Pakistan. Dawn is giving training to new-comers and when

I joined Dawn I was trained about six months but it focuses on how to pick out

stories, how to get information, and how to file them. But not much training on how

to cover stories in war zones or conflict areas in the events of protest or after the

bomb blast.

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M: If you could conceptualize and kind of support structures, either physical or

psychological, what would they be?

I think a training program by the government or journalist community by press clubs

or by organizations to train journalists in how to react in this type of situation.

M: So how do you think this could be done?

Maybe an organization like Jang, Dawn or different newspapers, if they launch their

own training to train their workers who to work, how to react in such situations.

There is a responsibility of the organization to provide safeguards, to provide training

and other facilities. I think it’s needed for newcomers. I’m still learning day-by-day.

M: How do you see your relationship with the subjects, people, that you cover?

I think that we separate feelings and our responsibility is to publish truth and to help

those people who are in disaster or who are the victim of anyone. So we have no

feeling with anyone, we have no grudge with anyone. We only cover incidents that

happen and we only dig out the cause behind it, the reason behind it or who was

responsible for the incident. So we have no relation with anyone, just a relation of the

journalist and the incident.

Doctor and patient.

M: So how do you see the role of journalist in a larger context, within the unfolding

conflict?

We only cover incidents caused by terrorism and militants. If you are talking about

why they are targeting, what they are doing, it’s a long debate.

Tahir  Khan  (NNI)  10  April  2010  My name is Muhammad Tahir Khan and I am the editor of the News Network

International, which is known as NNI. It is a private wire service. And I joined this

service in 2007. I have been working here for the past almost 14 years. And I first

joined the PPI, the Pakistani Press International after I did my mass communication

from global university in the northwest. And I partly worked in the 80s for a Karachi-

based Urdu daily.

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M: How did you get into this business?

In fact it is very, as an accident because when I was studying in Peshawar, I was

studying in Islamic Studies in fact in Peshawar but there had been some problems,

one student was killed in my hometown, in Mardan, because I belong to Mardan, but

because I was associated with a student group and I was charged in that murder case

although I was not there. I was in Peshawar and the murder was almost 60 kilometers

away from me. But because of student politics and some other problems of society

my name was also included in that case. Then I had to suspend my studies for some

time and when we were acquitted by the court. Then I had to resume my studies, then

I went to Global University, in fact I applied to law college and I got admission there

but someone objected about my admission to the chairman of the college and they

were saying, ‘he has also admission at Peshawar University’, but my admission was

already suspended in Peshawar and then I moved to the journalism department, Mass

Communication, at Umer University. But I didn’t have any plan to go for journalism.

I studied journalism and then I worked for a few months at a Peshawar-based

newspaper, the Frontier Times. Then I moved to Islamabad and I started to work as a

trainee reporter at PPI.

M: What kind of assignments do you normally work on?

At news agencies in Pakistan there is no well-organized beat system. They can send

you anywhere. That’s why I had an opportunity to cover the president, the prime

minister, the foreign office, to do some political assignment, some religious parties,

because I was Pashtun, I also focused on Afghanistan. And in those days when I

started our tribal regions were very peaceful, there was no militancy, nothing. So

that’s why were focused on Afghanistan. Pakistan was a base for information about

Afghanistan. But I covered everything.

M: What kind of difficulties have you faced in reporting on conflict in Pakistan or

Afghanistan?

I think there have been many. I will tell you about Afghanistan. I went to

Afghanistan with a foreign journalist because in those days there had been no

journalists in Afghanistan, in the early 90s. So the foreign journalist, if they get visa,

usually take journalists from Pakistan to travel with them because we’re Pashto

speaking so we were given preference. So I went with the Voice of America

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correspondent to Afghanistan and I had a problem there because I stayed in the office

of foreign news agencies. The Voice of American man stayed in a hotel and I stayed

with a friend in the AP office because I had some friends in AP and I requested to stay

there. It was compulsory for any journalist that went to Afghanistan first to register

themselves with the foreign ministry, then to once the Taliban summoned the AP

correspondent to the information ministry and asked why’s this Pakistani staying

here. And he was summoned and I also went. But I had a letter from the ambassador.

I had a relationship with Taliban people when they were here, from the Afghan

embassy when the Taliban were ruling Afghanistan. So my friend was Hazara, ethnic

Shia, so that was the problem. So I showed the letter and he allowed me to stay there

but they were not happy. And once we were travelling and near the hotel we were

stopped by the Taliban because I was thinking that they would be friendly with

Pakistanis and they searched us but they allowed us. This is what happened but we

worked. Once the Taliban broke into our room and they didn’t tell us anything but

they were searching the chairs and the tables and then they went back but we did not

like it. Even if you want to search the room you have to knock first. So these were

the problems and even when you go to the shops in Kabul, it was a risky thing. So if

you work in a conflict zone, you will be having fear. You are taking risk on your

own. So now if you go to the tribal zone, I’m a Pakistani but I cannot enter the tribal

region. I can go secretly but if the army spots me then definitely they will be arresting

me. There’s no restriction in the law but now because of the situation, they stop every

car, every vehicle, 3 or 4 check posts, you have to show your ID and if they found that

this man belongs to Peshawar, Islamabad, Lahore or wherever, they will not allow

you to enter. There’s no restriction but they do not allow you. Journalists especially

cannot go to these areas. We don’t go there because we don’t want to take risks.

Recently, you may have seen risks that 3 or 4 people are missing there, no one knows

where they are, Channel 4 British TV assigned one British-Pakistani journalist, Asad

Qureshi, he hired two former ISI men for a documentary. They went to Waziristan

and they have been missing since March 26th, no one knows where they are.

M: Do you ever face danger around here or is danger confined to NWFP or FATA or

places like that?

I think dangers are everywhere. If you want to independently report, if you want to

report what you have seen, what you have heard, you will be having problems. I will

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tell you. We went to Swat last year and we met some people whose relatives were

killed by the army. Innocent people were killed by the army. No one has reported in

Pakistan. We say we are independent, media in Pakistan, I will say ‘no’. If you

report only one side, “the Taliban have killed some people”, no problem for you.

Maybe sometime from the Taliban but when the army kills civilians. We met a

family, a 40 year old shopkeeper, who was shot by the army in front of his house in

after he closed his shop and was going home. He was stopped by the army, he was

with his brother-in-law, he was searched, he was allowed to go. Then he was

approaching his home, he was shot there by the army in front of his house, innocent

person, he was an IDP for 3 months in Peshawar and he just returned to his

hometown, Mingora, no one reported it. I also worked for the BBC Pashto service. I

wrote for the website, even it was not published immediately. We had to talk to the

army to get there story but even after, the story was not published in the same pattern

I wanted. But usually we have a practice, the BBC, the Voice of America, The

Washington Post, publish stories our local newspaper left the stories. And I was

expecting that story because it had a human angle, no newspaper in Pakistan lifted

that story because the army was involved and the people fear. If you talk about the

army, the army blunders or errors, I think journalists will think a few times either to

publish or not to publish. There is pressure, there is threats, they could be targeted,

they could be killed. They could be kidnapped by the state. They could be beaten.

They could be ignored at functions and that is what we have been experiencing in

Pakistan.

M: So what about the NNI? Do you guys print stories like this?

So times we look at how we can afford, to what extent we can. If you take risks that

we should report this thing you will have to see the people, the strength of the people,

your resources, how you can then fight your case. The journalist community in

Pakistan is not so much strong, I think, that they can’t help you so much on such

issues. They can help you sometimes, if police are involved, if politicians are

involved, maybe people will protest. But when the security agencies are involved, I

don’t think the journalist groups are so much strong to defend you, your institutions,

no. But we are independent and I’m not saying this just because I’m the editor, that

this agency, is far far better than others to report on such kind of issues also.

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M: How do you deal, personally, with this kind of difficulty?

I don’t expect anything from anyone, nothing. I feel that it’s my responsibility that if

one side is involved, in extrajudicial killings, brutal acts, I say when I appear on TV

channels sometimes, small TV channels, that if you are accusing Taliban of

terrorism, because there is no definition of terrorism, just the agreed definition is that

man or that woman who kills civilians. If the Taliban is killing civilians, you call

them terrorists but when the army’s killing civilians, what do you call them? I think

that whoever’s killing civilians, whether the army whether the Taliban, they should be

called in the same name. Our channels, our newspapers, sometimes they hide the

criminal acts of the security forces. This is dishonesty. If the army kills civilians, it’s

the responsibility of the media that they should be fair in reporting. There should be

no difference. This is the problem here.

M: So what do you know about PTSD?

I will say that when I leave my home in the morning and then go back sometime in

the night or evening, all the time we have this problem, this trauma problem. As I

told you I don’t consider media as independent in Pakistan. I tell people that media is

independent, to blame others on the government instructions, to accuse others, to

charge them in baseless allegations, on the direct orders, on the instruction of the

security forces, or the army, or sometimes for financial benefits, from the government,

then the media is free to report anything. But if you independently report things, we

have some people, there are a few journalists who are very bold, who are very brave,

who are impartial, independently reporting but they are in stress. I myself feel, I don’t

know it’s a personal thing but when I speak on TV channels, from the TV channel

until I reach my home, my flat, I fear that maybe I will be stopped by someone,

maybe I will be beaten or kidnapped or something like this so this trauma, this

psychological stress is always with me. But we don’t care because if you are a

journalist you have to perform your duties. Honestly, without benefits. Here the

problem is the government bribes journalists. We have very bad bad things. Like one

example, free trips, free hajj. Last year, the interior ministry took, I think more than

40 journalists for hajj free. The Saudi government requested free hajj for poor, every

year they request. They take journalists and most of the time rich journalists. But

they’re a stooge, those journalists who follow their lines. This thing never happened

anywhere in the world and I think it is a shame for journalists to accept these things,

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especially religious things. Many people think that this is not acceptable, hajj means

that if you have money, that if you can leave money to your parents and children

while you go, this is hajj. The rulers corrupt the journalists and unfortunately, I will

not say all but many journalists accept these perks, these illegal privileges. When I

accept from the government these things I cannot freely report.

Why are we stressed? I receive messages on this mobile, sometimes from Taliban,

Afghan Taliban, and we talk to them, we talk to everybody. Some people consider it

risky but we have to do it even if it is risky. We contact our correspondent in

Waziristan for stories. Once I received a message on this phone in Pashto because I

was working on a story and from an Al Qaeda man. From what I observed, my

conversation was recorded by somewhere there in Waziristan and I received a

message that you are agent, for who you are working and please stop this thing and

don’t do this, like this. I was just asking about the life of a man, an Al Qaeda man, an

Iraqi, I was writing a story on him, on his life, only on his life because I heard that

this man is very very impressive. He is deeply involved. He had a marriage in

Waziristan. His son can speak very good Pashto, just on his life. Because I am sitting

here, I am not a spy on him because Waziristan if 4 or 500 kilometers from

Islamabad. I don’t want where he is living, no this is not my job, this is the job of

other people. But even then I received an threatening SMS. It was a local mobile

number and I received a second SMS after an hour from the same number saying that

they apologize about the first message and we checked about you. It was just a doubt.

So he said don’t worry about it. We have a problem in our society. Someone can say

that this man is an agent or that he is working for the Voice of America or for British

TV or for Swedish or like this. So sometimes people create doubts in the minds of

others.

M: I wonder if there’s any kind of support structure for you or your journalists?

In Pakistan, no. There’s no support from any side, neither from journalists, from the

government, from the army, from the Taliban, no.

M: I wonder if there’s something like a therapist or something, not like a bulletproof

vest?

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I understand. You know, maybe this kind of question is very appropriate for the

journalist in America, maybe in Sweden, maybe somewhere in Britain… in Pakistan,

no, nothing like this (laughter). This thing, there’s no facility, no privilege, no

training, no security cover, no support, you’re just on your own. Yes, sometimes

friends, sometimes family, they advise, please when you speak, a little bit be careful.

Sometimes I’m thinking I should avoid to go to the TV channel. We were recently on

state TV on one topic, the topic involved US policies. I had a lot of problem there. It

was state TV, because I have my own opinion, on any issue you are free to have your

own opinion. Sometimes when people go to the state TV they are speaking different.

When they go to the private TV channel they feel freedom. But why we should

change if you have your own opinion about any issue. I realized that even in that

recorded program that even the anchor, he was interrupting me. He was not allowing

me to speak. If you invite me, if you ask me a question, I will be answering on my

own. You can interrupt me, you can stop me but you cannot force me to say what you

want. One TV channel came to my home, ARY TV channel, and the anchor was

acting very strange, very stupid, he was telling me to say that the army was having a

lot of success in South Waziristan. I said ‘why, why should I say it?’ This is the job

of the spokesman of the army and maybe you have some journalists who support the

operation, who support the army. They can do it. Why are you asking me? He said

‘okay, you are blacklisted from our TV channel’. I never told you to come to me.

You phoned me and said that you wanted to interview me on Waziristan. This is the

problem of our journalistic system, that our TV station, our radio or our newspapers,

they are following the instruction or the policies of others. They are following but

you cannot force the people to say this. So there is no therapist or psychological

doctors to go and talk to them.

We don’t care but this tension made have a diabetic passion, sugar passion.

M: Do you think it’s possible to create some kind of support structure for journalists

or do you think that they need it?

Of course there is a need. But we have a problem here also. The journalists are

divided on a political basis and this political differences are so high that when the

journalist needs some urgent support or such kind of treatment, they cannot find it

because of the division.

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M: Why does it matter if they’re politically split?

We have two kinds of journalist communities, one is so-called leftist, one is so-called

rightist. Although in Pakistan, these ideas are no [indecipherable]. Because those

people who had been supporting the leftists, they are now pro-American, for the

money. Those people who had supported the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and they

were against the Americans, now they are the most strong supporters of the

Americans. Because of this division, if journalists need some kind of what you were

talking about, they cannot get it. There is a need of a structure. There is a need of

support, yes. But we need training for our journalists. Our journalists are not trained.

The first training should be responsibility. The first thing in my opinion, language. If

they are going for Urdu, they must have a good command on Urdu, those who want to

do English must have good English knowledge, command, writing. But the main

thing is the sense of responsibility. When you report, when you write, you should be

balanced. There is a big problem of responsibility. Our media managers. They have

failed to create a sense of responsibility. Many journalists report directly. They don’t

quote their source. This is a big blunder in our journalist structure. They are not told

that when you are reporting, you are a journalist. You must have a source. They

don’t have any source.

M: So, with regards to support structures, do you see any way to create this, not

necessarily a big infrastructure, but anything?

It could be done. It could be created but my suggestion would be Pakistani journalists

should not be directly involved to be in charge or to be heading that kind of structure.

Someone else should do it. In Pakistan, journalists financial situations are very bad,

especially the new and young journalists. They are facing many problems financially

in terms of training. New journalists are not encouraged. We should encourage new

and young journalists. They are not welcome. They are not allowed even to get

training on the TV channel, especially the TV channel. This should be changed or

there should be some alternate route for them. If they want to go join the electronic

media, they should be allowed. So there should be a structure yes. But I think

journalists should not be involved, someone else, the people who are planning such

kind of structures, they should look for suitable persons. If you involve journalists,

they will go to benefit only their own favorites.

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Journalist  X  (Baluchistan)  12  April  2010  (requested  that  I  don’t  use  his  name)  I’m _______ and I’m a freelance journalist but nowadays I’m working for _________

and I am also working for _________ here in [Quetta, Balochistan].

M: Could you tell me how you got into this business?

That was it was not part of my program, in 1994…. [indecipherable]… because I like

the occupation of a journalist, My education is not in journalism. I am a law graduate.

Then I joined _________. There I started my career as a news reporter. And then for

a year, I was working there, And after 2001, after the fall of Taliban, I joined

[indecipherable] television and then the Taliban fell, a new government came I joined,

I went to Afghanistan and I worked there for the __________ and I also worked for

____________ and I covered the Afghan War at that time from 2001 to 2002.

M: And where are you from exactly?

I’m from Pakistan, Quetta city and I belong to ________________, it’s both in

Pakistan and Afghanistan. And so we can freely go to Afghanistan without any

documents or anything.

M: What kind of assignments do you mainly work on lately?

I am working in different political reportings, cultural everything, not any specialty.

M: What kind of difficulties do you face in reporting in Pakistan or Afghanistan?

You know, in this region, Pakistan is ranked as the most deadly country in the world

for journalists, you know. And every journalist, not only me, faces many many many

difficulties, especially in the conflict affected areas like Afghanistan, and NWFP and

also in Balochistan. We work for a free media and we have many problems, like

political problem, and you know here the journalists face propaganda threat and

targeting also in this province. There are many areas and any journalist cannot go into

these areas freely and any journalist must gain permission from the government. And

nobody is reporting independently the situation of the area because there’s many

problems like this self-censorship in order to not antagonize conflicting in parties.

This is the biggest problem, these conflicting parties, to not antagonize these

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conflicting parties. And sometimes the parties blame to you that you are the agent of

so-and-so, like you know, separatists and fundamentalists will also threaten you for

many many reasons.

M: So have you gotten threats before?

I was, yes yes yes. I was working for __ in Afghanistan, in Kandahar, especially, at

that time there was a Vietnamese reporter, I interviewed the governor of that province

of Kundar province, and it was not beneficial to him and it was reported to him, and

he said that I didn’t say this, no, and the governor directly threatened me. He said that

you’re an agent of Taliban and you’re an agent of [indecipherable]… I refused and

said that this was the job because this kind of situation is not….. and I told him that

it’s not my job to censure his statement because I’m not a part of his government.

And then I was also arrested by the Afghan intelligence but the luck in me, this is my

luck that I belong to such a tribe and my tribe is a very strong tribe. My elders

interrupted and came into this situation and then I came to Kandahar and I quickly

came to Pakistan. That was big threat for me.

M: So what other kinds of experiences have you had with danger?

Yea, this is what sticks out but during that time, when you’re reporting, there are

major chances that the opposing party will kidnap you and they use the journalist to

accept their demands with other parties or with governments sometimes and now in

Islamabad, one of the journalists is also kidnapped and he’s missing, nobody accepted

any responsibility, in this Northwest Waziristan areas, including on ex-intelligence

officer from the Pakistan Army, he’s also missing. And here in Balochistan, even I’m

sitting here in this province, the Baloch militants who are fighting against the

government for their independence they also killed one single journalist in Quetta

city, in the capital of the province. And they also accept the claim, they also the

militant groups accept the responsibility of killing. They call to the media to the news

agency, they accept this incident, they accept this responsibility. They say he’s not

writing the real picture, he’s not showing the real picture of Balochistan. That’s why

they kill them.

M: What do you know about post-traumatic stress syndrome?

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Maybe if you face some militants, somebody cuts you somebody threatens you,

automatically you will be stressed.

M: I wonder if you or you know of other journalists that have problems with the

stress, not bad problems but problems with the stress of reporting from Balochistan,

Afghanistan, NWFP or FATA?

Actually I don’t discuss with my colleagues on this issues so I don’t know really.

M: What about you?

I use alcohol. Alcohol is very common in our community, in the journalist

community. Some use hashish or something.

M: Do you drink very often related to stress?

Yes.

M: Everyday?

4 times a week.

M: Do you drink heavily?

Uh, no, just [indecipherable], or one beer or something.

M: Is it for enjoyment or stress?

Actually, this our only way for relaxation because we are too much tired. It is for

stress. We are working for the whole day because journalist is a full-time job, and we

are there early in the morning until the evening. Sometimes all night we will be

working. And during that time we need some relaxation for our minds. And I think

alcohol is the only way.

M: Are there any kind of support structures that exist for journalists like you?

Nothing nothing nothing. As you know there is a great need to provide journalists

with training for security. And through training workshops, I think this is the only

way. They never give any training or any other…

M: Do you think there is a need for support structures?

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Yes, we need support.

M: What kind of things do you think are most needed?

First of all in our region, in Pakistan, our big problem is the job insurance. We don’t

have life insurance. Secondly, a very good package is necessary to give the

journalists, a good salary, much better. But life insurance is the most important, from

the state or from the organization, we are not insured.

M: Do you think there are any kind of psychological support structures that could be

given to journalists?

Yes, because I told you before training workshops are necessary. Psychological

training is also necessary to give awareness.

M: So how do you think this could be made possible?

Many NGOs work in Pakistan but there’s no organization to provide such kind of

platform to the journalist. And, firstly, I think it’s the responsibility of the state to

provide such kind of thing for the journalist. Secondly, the responsibility is for the

organization or media agency.

M: What about the PFUJ or Intermedia?

Actually, these Pakistani news organizations are involved in politics. The PFUJ

representatives are nominated for a year or two years. They cannot work for the

benefit of the journalists. They work for their organizations for contacts with the

governments and get advertisements from their newspapers from their channels. This

is the big basic problem of 3rd world countries. There is a platform for the journalist,

it is the NGO, but they are not doing such a kind of job.

M: So you think the best way to create a support structure for journalists in Pakistan

is through an NGO, not through the news organization, not through the government?

Yes, yes.

M: So how do you see your relationships with the people you cover?

I’m very comfortable with the people, with the common people in the cities. When

you go to a remote area you face difficulties. They wonder why you are asking

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questions, like I visit many times a Pashtun area and I ask, ‘what do you think is

normal?’ and there is a shock! And they say who are you, why are you asking? This

kind of problem face many time due to illiteracy. When I explain I work for a

newspaper or television, after that they can freely talk.

M: How do you see yourself in relation to the conflict that’s unfolding? How do you

see yourself in all of this?

The society, the area where I’m living, everyone suffers and I also suffer. We have

no way to hide. And we are facing these kind of problems. Secondly, this is our job.

Sometimes you feel excited, sometimes you feel relaxed. It’s a part of our job.

Zahir  Shah  Sherazi  (Dawn):  21  April  2010  M: Do you work just for the Dawn?

No, I work for the Herald magazine, the Herald Tribune, and off and on work as a

kind of expert for Al Jazeera.

M: So you don’t mind if I ask you about April 5th? (No) Could you explain to me

what happened that day, what you were doing what happened actually?

Actually, we were in our office, which is just about 5000 metres away from the area

where this explosion took place. We were involved after there was a minor explosion,

within 2 or 3 minutes time we were there at this spot where this incident took place.

First there was a policeman who opened, you can say, scare shots to us and some

people to move. Earlier we were just 10 metres from this spot where these 3

explosions took place, 3 or 4 explosions you can say. And then after when this firing

started then we were pushed back because of the securities or whatever. When we

were about 100 metres away, firing started, the army and those miscreants who were

holding positions there, they were exchanging fire with small arms. Then after 6 or 7

minutes you can say, then there was the explosion, the first explosion, destroyed the

front building. The trees, there were some huge trees in that area and then the

explosion, you can say, in that area. It was also filmed on camera because the

cameraman was there, Aziz. After the first blast all those trees which were standing

there, they were banished at once. The second explosion after you can say just 2 or 3

minutes. And this explosion almost destroyed a complete building, the American

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consulate, on the left side… This building you can say what totally demolished on the

front side. And then the third explosion took place and it was more severe then the

first two ones. And even the pieces of those far… [indecipherable]… all black,

maybe 5 metres away from the explosion. Then there was totally a gun battle. It was

you can say like we were watching a film. I have been covering these things but it

was really a strange experience, 3 explosions from suicide bombings that took place

just in front of me. After that there was a lot of panic for 10 or 15 minutes, there was

firing [guns], small explosions, a couple of, one or two, might be because of hand

grenade explosion. But these were small explosions. Then when we were leaving

there the situation was under control…. The main gate was a little bit damaged the

guard area inside was completely destroyed. The cars and other vehicles which are

usually parked there were totally destroyed. One wall of the consulate, it has

collapsed. Inside, I cannot say what happened, the media were not allowed to go in.

M: So you said that the experience was strange?

Yes, of course, just standing metres away from the spot, watching those explosions.

Because we have been filming all these things but normally we used to arrive two or

three minutes after the blast or maybe five minutes after the blast. There’s a lot of

bodies but the army was there and cordoned off the entire area. We were allowed to

move in on the spot, almost like 20/30 [indecipherable]…

M: So were you guys filming there before or were you walking to work or something?

Why were you already in the area?

No no no, actually before this explosion there was a minor explosion, it was the first

attack. And after hearing that we went to cover that explosion.

M: Okay, so following that, how did you feel? Because you were also working at the

same time, so you said you felt strange but you’re also doing your job right?

The area where we are working is obviously the conflict zone and that is why we are

hired to work. But as far as working, yes I do like to work here but the issue is

definitely you feel the threat sometime, you feel the heat of everything that is

happening around. Definitely you feel for you security, for your self security and

definitely you have to think about your family also, like after such things go on.

Because this is a dark game, you cannot say that you’ll be away from the blast site,

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you’ll always be escaping those suicide bombings or explosions because you have

seen in Quetta a cameraman died and then in Kohat25 we’ve seen a suicide explosion,

first there was one then there was a second explosion. I would say that things would

have been very dangerous if we had not been pushed back by that police man who

was firing. So that would have been a very major incident because a couple of other

media people were there, they almost reached there and were about to start their

activity or whatever but the issue was, you can say it was just a chance that we

survived because it would have been that normally when we meet the blast site in

Pakistan there is not much awareness. The crime site, or the blast site is usually

cordoned off within 10 minutes time or 5 minutes time. The journalist we used to

reach even before the defence agencies so normally the threat is always there. You

cannot avoid such things. But the threat is always there, unexploded explosives, but

you have to continue, you have to do your job, like a military man you are hired for

this. This is a part of life. You have to do it.

M: So following the blasts, what did you do? What did you do after the incident?

We went to the site to see what had happened. The army, the rangers and all that had

cordoned off the area so no one was able to move from there. Most of the journalists,

including me, were lying on the ground. Even after, the pieces of cars, the pellets and

all these things they had fired into a 500 squared metre area so definitely the panic

was there, the situation was quite chaotic.

M: So do you think you felt shocked in any way because you were right there?

No, we have been covering this thing for over three years. So definitely it was

shocking to see three explosions going on and you’re watching with your own eyes.

Earlier I would have told that we have seen these explosions, just read that site after

the explosion. So there was a lot of difference between observing those explosions

than watching those explosions. So yes definitely it was shocking.

M: So you didn’t take any time off work or anything?

25 http://www.paktribune.com/news/index.shtml?226583

85

No, we haven’t stopped working. And the reason obviously is that we are here and

we are working the job, the environment and other channels, you can say rival media

groups.

M: So I wonder what Dawn’s response was to your experience?

Well, the bureau chief you can say, is always caring about us. They are concerned

about the staff security. They called and were inquiring about us. But you know I am

heading the bureau so most of the time we are seen. On the other hand the

management about us and even in some cases even the management calls to ask about

your security and safety.

M: So did that happen to you?

Yea, why not, why not. Definitely you can say that happens a number of times. They

do call us. Definitely, off and on they have a courtesy call, ‘keep on the safe side and

this and that’.

M: So is that the only kind of support structure they had, they call you and ask

whether or not you’re okay? Was there anything else? I’m interested in if there

might be some kind of psychological support.

You can say there’s a morale boosting type of thing, you can say that keep safe, don’t

go further, don’t go deep. These are all the things you are saying that they can do on

the telephone.

M: I wonder what you know about posttraumatic stress syndrome, PTSD?

Yea, I have heard about it. Definitely there is posttraumatic stress. We cannot say

there isn’t. Because we’ve been doing stories on documentaries on the people, the

policeman, the people who are present, or the media, and even the hospital staff they

are overworked most of the time. So definitely we have to take care of these things.

M: So was this particular incident on April 5th, was it easy for you to deal with?

No, I don’t think so it was easy. Another incident there was a severe suicide bombing

in Zangali checkpost26, a hundred people were killed in that. And I was round about

26 http://www.thenews.com.pk/top_story_detail.asp?Id=17074

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half a kilometre from that area also. And I just went to the spot and all the bodies,

you can say that more than 100 people were lying injured or dead. So that was also a

unique experience but this one is also like definitely the bombs are going off in front

of you and all these things. I was just coming off the scene but this time you can say I

was just witnessing the scene. All the explosions were going on so it was quite hectic

and a strange experience. Definitely like my generation this was a unique kind of

coverage we had done. Also earlier there were a similar kind of attack on the Pearl

Continental Hotel27 but that was also a long time after we arrived there, reached there,

so things were settling down, the people were still under jeopardy but this time you

can say that explosions took place in front of you and that was quite a unique

experience

M: So how do you deal with this, how do you deal with the stress associated with

doing this work?

Stress is always there. The issue is you have to manage it. The problem is when

you’re a team leader. I will just say when I am heading there. Most of the time I have

to control all these things myself. If I got panic and one of my colleagues used to do

this and he say, don’t [indecipherable]… Still if you’re a journalist, I myself cannot

stop when going deep. Advising other is very easy and you are working, you are

overworked, but even in the last two years we’ve been covering in a sense, two or

three blasts or suicide bombings just in one day so it is a specific job. It’s a self-train

type of a thing, the last two years, you don’t feel much stress-wise covering these

things now. It’s challenging, just moving over the bodies, just walking over the body

parts. But definitely when you go home you are depressed and demoralised.

Definitely you are thinking that it is a lot of bloodshed that you have seen in front of

your own eyes. Apprently you cannot say there is any kind of entertainment and

consoling your stress but definitely you have to go along and you have to work,

because this is a routine life when you are working in a conflict zone or a conflict war

zone.

M: You said that you are demoralised when you go home, how do you…?

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You cannot say demoralisation but to an extent, yes definitely you do feel quite low in

your activity once because of the hectic effort, stress, definitely and also…

M: How do you fight that?

You know I cannot say where the strength is coming but I am challenging type of

personality so I like to do the hard things so you know I couldn’t feel very much how

I control this but you can say it’s a self-control type of a thing which… I will just

mention one thing that in the last two three years I even could not avail you could say

off and on, you could say my weekly offs, for the last almost three years since the

Dawn was launched so I don’t know how it is managed but you can say it an

involuntary type thing that is not in your control. Involuntary type of reaction or kind

of courage. You can control such things it is my opinion. I don’t know how others

peoples are doing it. That could be one reason, I am doing it in that way.

M: Do you think that proper support structures are available to you when you need

them or do you wish that something else…?

Yea, the support structure. I will not say that only the Dawn or, we have some kind of

safety type of the jackets and these things which you can say, some kind of

precautionary measures. Otherwise I don’t I don’t think so there is anything which

can save from the suicide bombings or the bombings, the firing, but these are the only

kinds of things that can be provided by the organisation. And in the past we also had

some kind of insurance kind of thing that injured or dead or whatever. Otherwise I

don’t think there are any extraordinary measures or equipment.

M: What about if a reporter had panicked or is kind of freaked out because something

like this happened, if a reporter went to a suicide bombing and he’s really stressed out

and he comes to you and you can see that he or she has kind of gone over?

Yea, why not. There was a bombing in 2007, in 2008 when there was the former

interior minister, there was a bombing at an election gathering. There was all bodies

lying around and my colleague, a good cameraman, his name is Bilal. He when he

was shooting all those, actually we don’t really go on air with body parts and bodies

but definitely you have to grab all those things which you are getting in your camera

eye. So filming those things he got panic and he said I cannot, so I just took the

camera and shot it myself. At those times you cannot force a reporter, like a couple of

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reporters came to me with a message or call that fighting is going on in

[indecipherable]… like in the hospital areas. Sometimes there is a protest or a

[indecipherable] involved, the mob is very angry and they are protesting, so in those

situations, like in the rallies, sometimes the firings and the shellings continue and the

reporter he is calling you and he could not come or he could not continue. So yea,

just go on go, go to the safe side, don’t worry about the coverage. That kind of thing

is, humanly, you have to support and being a team leader you have to support.

M: Do you think there’s a need for psychological support structures for journalists?

What if one of your journalists needs more than just encouragement from the editor?

Well, I think this thing never happened so far. But they do sometimes call you,

message you, so keep safe, keep trying, don’t worry about the coverage. These are

the things you can say whether it’s a formality or a morale boosting type of a thing.

Definitely I won’t say it’s not coming.

The issue is that the journalists working here in the war zone we are very much

underpaid, we are not well paid. We’ve not been provided the new facilities. We’ve

not been provided the new training to do such like jobs. That is a poor service

structure for the journalists working here. Most of the media organisations are not

paying well to the journalists that are working in this war zone, not only foreign

organisations.

M: Do you work in FATA as well?

Yes, I work in FATA, NWFP and Afghanistan but not Balochistan.