ISLAMABAD - Pakistani authorities are scrutinizing media coverage of a Pashtun rights movement, blocking VOA websites and filing police cases against journalists covering local rallies.
Sailaab Mehsud of RFE/RL's Mashaal radio and Zafar Wazir of a local TV channel were identified in a police report as participants of a protest rally Saturday in Dera Ismael Khan in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province along with nearly 20 other people. Police alleged they were chanting slogans against state institutions and inciting the public to violence.
Mehsud said he and Wazir were covering the Pashtun Tahaffuz Movement rally as journalists.
About a week earlier, Pakistan ordered internet service providers to block the website of Voice of America's Urdu language service. VOA's "Deewa" news website, which primarily caters to the Pashto-speaking audience in the region around the Afghan border, has been blocked sporadically by various providers since late October.
A U.S. State Department spokesperson said Wednesday, "We are deeply concerned with the government of Pakistan’s attempts to block Voice of America’s Urdu and Pashtun language service websites. We call on the government of Pakistan to respect its international legal obligations regarding the right to freedom of expression, and unblock the affected websites."
Information Minister Fawad Chaudhry claimed the sites were blocked for "false and prejudiced reporting."
"The stories they were doing were only projecting a particular narrative without any impartial view. There are many things happening in our country and most are positive," he said.
VOA Director Amanda Bennett said the was "troubled" by the blockage of the services in a formal statement Wednesday, but noted that their content continues to be available on an affiliated Urdu-language television station as well as radio, satellite and social media platforms.
"Our audience members count on VOA to provide factual, unbiased and objective coverage of current events, so any attempt to block our websites deprives Urdu and Pashto speakers in the region access to a trusted news source," VOA said. "In the interest of press freedom, VOA calls upon those responsible for blocking our content to immediately remove these constraints."
While Information Minister Chaudhry did not elaborate, an intelligence source told VOA on condition of anonymity that the decision to block the Urdu website was triggered by VOA's coverage of PTM, which has a tense relationship with Pakistan's military.
Nafees Takar, the head of VOA's Deewa Service, defended his service's coverage of PTM activities as journalistically warranted and balanced.
"We bring in ministers, government officials, and military statements on Twitter and the official website of ISPR (the public relations wing of the military) for balancing the PTM coverage," he said.
Urdu Service chief Kokab Farshori said PTM is an important story for his audience as well, and denied that the coverage is prejudiced.
"We regularly interview government officials and ministers. A recent press conference by the military spokesman was our lead story. So, to say we have not been balanced is not true," he said.
Leaders of PTM claim that Pakistan's military is involved in human rights violations linked to its efforts to rid the Afghanistan-Pakistan border region of militant groups. Around 200,000 Pakistani troops are deployed in the region to "secure and control militant violence," according to military spokesman Maj. Gen. Asif Ghafoor.
PTM also claims that the military supports and protects certain militant groups even as it carries out clearing operations against others — a charge the military strongly denies. One of the movement's slogans, chanted often in its rallies, "yeh jo dehshat gardi hai, iss ke peechai wardi hai," literally means "the military uniform is behind this terrorism."
U.S. and Afghan officials routinely accuse Pakistani officials of supporting banned terror groups, but such accusations are rarely voiced by Pakistanis. That partly accounts for the close scrutiny of the group, which was warned again last week by Pakistan's military spokesman.
In a news conference Ghafoor said the state had so far taken a soft stance on PTM because of a realization that its members had suffered from 15 years of war. However, he warned PTM leaders to not cross "the line where the state may have to use force to control the situation." He did not specify what constitutes that line.
Internet users in Pakistan started reporting they could not access VOA Urdu's website a day after a news conference held by PTM leader Mohsin Dawar which the service covered and streamed live on Facebook.