From: "Salil Tripathi" <salil61-AT-hotmail.com>
Subject: Journalistan
Date: Thu, 08 Nov 2001 10:14:05 +0000




Dear Saeed

Thanks for sending this report from Jang. Journalists covering such wars are 
usually under severe restrictions, which is wrong. For a hilarious account 
of the earlier Afghanistan war, when the Soviets were in Kabul, take a look 
at a chapter in one of P.J. O'Rourke's books -- I think it is in Holidays 
from Hell, in which he lampoons the over-eager and over-here western 
correspondents on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, all eager to go in and 
see the mojahedin, who in those days could do no wrong. (Why, I recall NYT 
writing glowingly of the disciplined Taliban soldiers taking over 
Afghanistan in 1996....) I know O'Rourke is far from politically-correct, 
but his pungent critique of his colleagues was excellent.

Since the story you've posted shows what a lousy job the journalists already 
there are doing, I thought I'll send the following, from the Boston Globe, 
which shows racial profiling of another kind, practised by the Pakistani 
immigration officials. Indian journalists and journalists of Indian descent, 
irrespective of nationality, are not being allowed into Pakistan to report 
on the war. Among those denied visas are CNN's South Asia correspondent, a 
Canadian called Satinder Bindra. Pakistan has a long-standing policy of 
making it exceptionally difficult for Indian journalists to go there, 
particularly during difficult times, and if visas are issued, extremely 
onerous conditions are usually placed. The only exceptions are official 
delegations which join Indian ministers to Pakistan. I'd be the first to 
suspect that the reverse would true, but India does not particularly 
disfavor Pakistani journalists applying for a visa. Indian authorities 
require all journalists, who declare that they want to visit India to 
report, to fulfil some requirements -- Pakistani reporters are not singled 
out.

Salil


>
>The Boston Globe
>Nov. 7, 2001
>http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/311/living/India_Pakistan_conflict_affecting_war_coverage-.shtml
>
>THE MEDIA
>India-Pakistan conflict affecting war coverage
>
>By Mark Jurkowitz, Globe Staff, 11/7/2001
>
>Concerns that the government of Pakistan is refusing to give visas to some
>reporters of Indian ethnicity trying to cover the war in Afghanistan has
>prompted several journalistic organizations to lodge protests over an
>issue that appears to be an outgrowth of the simmering tension between
>India and Pakistan.
>
>On Oct. 29, the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists sent a
>letter to Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf stating that it is
>''extremely concerned by your government's apparent refusal to process
>visa applications from journalists of Indian descent. ... Because the
>current crisis is one of truly global proportions, it is crucial that
>journalists from around the world are granted unfettered access to
>countries currently on the `front lines' such as Pakistan.''
>
>"We really did wait until there was a pretty obvious pattern," said
>Kavita Menon, the committee's Asia program coordinator. ''This is one of
>the most systematic, far-reaching efforts to restrict access I've seen so
>far.''
>
>Sreenath Sreenivasan, co-founder of the New York-based South Asian
>Journalists Association, which represents about 800 journalists of South
>Asian origin in the United States and Canada, worries that Pakistani
>restrictions on journalists of Indian heritage will also be harmful to
>their career development.
>
>''These are the kind of reporters we need to send to that part of the
>world. ... You have a language, you have a knowledge, you have an
>understanding of that part of the world,'' said Sreenivasan, who is also a
>professor at Columbia's Graduate School of Journalism. ''In this country,
>foreign reporting is an honor. It's a privilege. ... It's hard enough to
>get a foreign posting when you're a minority. It's unfair for Pakistan or
>any other country [to discriminate] based on citizenship.''
>
>Among those journalists who have been unable to get Pakistani visas are a
>number of British Broadcasting Corp. staffers based in New Delhi; CNN New
>Delhi bureau chief Satinder Bindra, who is a Canadian citizen; Moni Basu,
>an Indian citizen who is a US permanent resident and works at the Atlanta
>Journal-Constitution; and Raja Mishra, a Boston Globe Staffer and Nebraska
>native. Basu said that after some bureaucratic delay, Pakistani officials
>told her ''that if I had other colleagues who could go, the paper should
>send them.'' Mishra said he was told by the Pakistani embassy that the
>''government established a new policy essentially banning Indian
>reporters, regardless of their nationality.'' Mishra called that ''racial
>profiling of the most blatant kind.''
>
>Asad Hayauddin, press attache at the Pakistani embassy in Washington,
>acknowledged that ''India and Pakistan are not on the best of terms'' but
>said journalists ''have not been denied or cannot get visas. There is just
>a procedure to be followed.'' According to Hayauddin, the embassy has the
>authority to issue 30-day visas to journalists of non-Indian heritage as
>long as the paperwork is forwarded to the Ministry of Information.
>Journalists who hold either Indian citizenship or are of Indian descent
>must undergo a lengthier process that includes a review of the application
>by the Ministry of Interior and Ministry of Information. He said Pakistani
>officials are ''still working'' on Basu's application, and that Mishra
>''has a chance to get in.''
>
>Mishra's Globe colleague, Indira Lakshmanan, a US citizen of Indian
>heritage, was allowed into Pakistan when she arrived there from Hong Kong
>in mid-September and subsequently had her visa extended and marked for
>reentry.
>
>Hayauddin said his country's visa policy is ''guided by bilateral
>agreements between India and Pakistan. Because of security concerns, a
>certain restrictive policy has been adopted.''
>
>Navtej Sarna, a spokesman for the Indian embassy in Washington, said,
>''I'm not aware of any such [bilateral] agreement.'' He also indicated
>that while a Pakistani journalist would have to undergo a different
>process to get a visa to India, his country does not differentiate between
>any other journalist and journalists of Pakastani heritage who are not
>Pakistani citizens. ''We go by nationality,'' said Sarna, ''If a person is
>an American citizen, we say his ethnicity does not make a difference.''
>
>With the war raging in Afghanistan, there are a lot more Indian
>journalists trying to get to Pakistan now than there are Pakistani
>journalists trying to get to India. And Sreenivasan, of the South Asian
>Journalists Association, said all the complaints he is getting are about
>restrictions in Pakistan. Basu said that while she hasn't gotten a visa,
>several other journalists from her newsroom were allowed to go to
>Pakistan. While Mishra remains frustrated in his efforts to reach
>Pakistan, three other non-Indian Globe reporters who applied when he did
>or afterward were allowed to go there.
>
>Overseas, there have also been problems for Indian journalists. A senior
>BBC journalist who asked not to be named said in an e-mail that he and a
>colleague were told by Pakistan's Ministry of Information that reporters
>with any kind of ''Indian connection'' would need Interior Ministry
>clearance and ''they seemed to be passing us from pillar to post.'' A CNN
>spokeswoman confirmed that Bindra, the network's New Delhi bureau chief
>and a Canadian citizen now stationed in northern Afghanistan, was turned
>down for a Pakistani visa and ''we're not sure of the circumstances.''
>
>Subhranshu Choudhary, a producer in the BBC's South Asia Bureau in New
>Delhi, said there are more than 10 journalists in that bureau (including
>one citizen of the United Kingdom) who applied nearly two months ago and
>have still not been granted a Pakistani visa while non-Indians got visas
>within ''hours.''
>
>''I applied just two or three days after September 11. I haven't heard
>anything back,'' he said in an interview. ''If I give them a call, they
>will say it's still in process.''
>
>
>This story ran on page C1 of the Boston Globe on 11/7/2001.
>© Copyright 2000 Globe Newspaper Company.
>
>
>


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