The Balochistan Union of Journalists (BUJ) condemned the “extrajudicial detention” of journalist Ghulam Farooq by the Counter-Terrorism Department (CTD) of Pakistan. The journalist body condemned the arrest-cum-abduction and asked the provincial government to investigate the action.
In a media statement, the journalist body said that the CTD raided the house of journalist Ghulam Farooq, the Finance Secretary of Dhadar Press Club, without a warrant and “extrajudicially detained” him. His whereabouts and condition remain unknown.
BUJ said that if the authorities have credible evidence to incriminate Ghulam Farooq in any crime, they should present him before the court and prosecute him legally. The group said that since the “enforced disappearance” of Ghulam Farooq, a wave of dread and anxiety has spread among the journalist community in Balochistan. BUJ said that national and international journalists associations are expressing alarm over the arrest.
The Balochistan Union of Journalists requested Chief Minister Balochistan Quddus Bizenjo and IG Balochistan police to produce Ghulam Farooq in a court and prosecute him legally.
Rights groups and journalist bodies argue that the Pakistani government and the powerful military establishment is deliberately cracking down on independent, investigative journalism in the country. Media censorship has taken a grim face over the past several years as tens of journalists have been abducted, tortured and even killed. In a region with no shortage of no-go areas, human rights investigators and journalists unanimously argue that the hardest place to get accurate information from is Balochistan.
Baloch nationalists claim that the Pakistani state has erected a media censorship apparatus in Balochistan and made it increasingly difficult for journalists to work in this environment. They say that the Pakistani state is deliberately turning Balochistan into an “information black hole” to prevent discussion of Baloch grievances.
Nationalists claim that the Pakistani security forces carry out egregious human rights violations in Balochistan, but none of that makes it to Pakistan’s domestic media. They say that Balochistan has become a “human rights catastrophe” but no one outside its borders know this because of the media censorship put in place. Journalists working in Balochistan follow the same line as the Pakistani state and often misreport or misrepresent events occurring in Balochistan. To justify this travesty of reporting, the journalists claim that they risk their lives if they don’t follow the version of events provided to them by Pakistan’s state agencies.
Outside of Balochistan, Baloch journalists have been threatened for reporting on Balochistan. Journalist Sajid Hussain, the founder of The Balochistan Times, an online newspaper focusing on Balochistan, was “abducted” in March 2020 in Sweden and his dead body was found in a river a month later. Similarly, other journalists have received life threats. Some journalists have also reportedly seen their social media accounts getting blocked at the request of the Pakistani state.