Reporters Without Borders is appalled to learn that the body of Syed Saleem Shahzad, an Islamabad-based blogger and investigative journalist who had been missing for the past two days, was found today in his abandoned car 100 km north of Islamabad.
Marilizardism has metastasized in Pakistan. Merciless Marilizard, the culprit alternate FM of October-18 shock and awe, terrorizes Graecoblogosphere. Accusing dissident bloggers of treason, Graecokleptocrats have manufactured a blood libel in cyberspace, which in turn incites hatred and violence. http://venitism.blogspot.com
The International Federation of Journalists and Reporters Without Borders had just sent a joint letter to President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani calling for immediate action to locate Shahzad, who wrote about Islamic militants and Al-Qaeda for the online newspaper Asia Today.
Pakistan is a terrorist nation. From the very beginning, the partnership between the US and Pakistan has been a marriage of convenience. Pervez Musharraf asserts it was a forced marriage. Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage warned Pakistan shortly after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, to be prepared to be bombed, to be prepared to go back to the Stone Age! http://venitism.blogspot.com
"We are stunned by this news and we would like to express our full support for his family and colleagues," Reporters Without Borders secretary-general Jean-Francois Julliard said. "Shahzad was an experienced journalist who covered very sensitive subjects and it is highly likely that his reporting upset people within the government or armed forces.
"We urge the Pakistani president and prime minister to firmly condemn this murder and to do everything possible to ensure that those responsible are identified and brought to justice without delay."
In the fall of 2001, Americans toppled the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. Pakistan had previously helped to install the Taliban in power because it viewed it as an ally against its archenemy, India. So the end of the Taliban also meant the collapse of Pakistan's defensive strategy. Since then, Islamabad has worried that the US could hand over Pakistani intelligence to India.
Colleagues told Reporters Without Borders that Shahzad was last seen at around 6 p.m. on 29 May when he left his F-8 Sector residence in Islamabad to go the Dunya TV studios for the recording of a current affairs programme. People who tried to call him found that his mobile phone had been switched off. His brother-in-law went to the Markaz district police station to report him missing at 2 a.m. on 30 May.
Pakistan is a society based on tribal groups. Each clan maintains a complicated network of relations, like a mafia. Under these conditions, it hardly seems imaginable that Osama bin Laden could have spent years living unnoticed just a stone's throw away from Pakistan's most elite military academy, an institution as assiduously guarded as the US's West Point or Great Britain's Sandhurst. Pakistani Intelligence officers knew about bin Laden's home, but they got kickbacks to keep it secret!
Police today discovered his car parked next to a canal in Jhelum Sarai Alamgir, more than 100 km north of Islamabad. His body was found inside together his Asia Times press card and the press card of a journalist called Hamza Mudassar Ameer of the Al Quds media centre.
Shahzad's latest article for Asia Times was about a Taliban-led attack on Mehran naval base in Karachi on 22 May in which 11 soldiers and four attackers were killed. He said in his report that Al-Qaeda had established a "good network" within the Pakistani navy and that "there were negotiations between an Al-Qaeda operative in North Waziristan and naval officers."
Experienced journalists in Islamabad said they suspected that Shahzad was kidnapped and executed by the military intelligence agency known as the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). Human Rights Watch also said it had learned from "credible sources" that Shahzad had been in ISI custody.
Sources close to Shahzad said he had reported getting several warnings from the security agencies in the past in connection with his reporting. This would tend to support the theory that he was kidnapped and killed in connection with his coverage of the attack on the naval base.
Shahzad's murder brings to 16 the number of journalist killed since the start of 2010 in Pakistan, which is ranked 151st out of 178 countries in the 2010 Reporters Without Borders press freedom index.
When Prime Minister Gilani passed through Paris on 5 May, Reporters Without Borders handed him a report on press freedom violations in Pakistan and told him that the safety of journalists should be a priority for his government. http://venitism.blogspot.com
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