CPJ mourns the death of Pakistani tribal journalist

New York, June 6 (UNI) The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has mourned the death of a professional colleague at the Tribal Union of Journalists (TUJ), Noor Hakim Khan, a correspondent for the Daily Pakistan and Vice President of the TUJ in Peshawar.

''We regretfully add the name of our colleague Noor Hakim Khan to the growing list of journalists killed while covering the news in Pakistan,'' Joel Simon,executive director of the CPJ, said yesterday. ''Once again, we call on the government to do everything in its power to protect journalists throughout the country and particularly in the tribal regions.'' CPJ is a New York-based, independent, non-profit organization that works to safeguard press freedom worldwide.

According to local media reports, Hakim was one of the five people killed by a roadside bomb at about 1800 hrs on Saturday in the Bajaur region of the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP).

Behroz Khan, the Peshawar-based reporter for The News, confirmed the reports that Hakim was returning after covering a jirga, a traditional court. He had been invited to witness the demolition of a house belonging to the perpetrator of a February car bombing that had killed a physician.

The demolition was part of the disposition of the court case.

Khan was travelling with a local official and a tribal chief who had taken a role in the case, according to the reports. Their car was third in a convoy returning from the area, reports said, and it might have been specifically targetted.

Hakim was the sixth journalist killed for his work since the beginning of 2000. Eleven journalists have been killed in all of Pakistan since that time. Other than in the 2002 death of Daniel Pearl, the Mumbai-based South Asia correspondent for the New York-based Wall Street Journal, none of the cases has been fully investigated, and no one has been charged with a crime.

The CPJ also expressed its outrage against the Pakistani police, who have filed a complaint against nearly 200 journalists. The scribes have been charged with defying a ban on political rallies.

The journalists group urged the government to immediately withdraw the cases, and to stop its pattern of intimidation against journalists.

The complaint comes after members of the press, led by the Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists, demonstrated outside the Prime Minister's office in Islamabad. They were protesting a presidential ordinance that gives the government broadened powers to halt broadcasters' transmissions, close offices, seize equipment and revoke licenses. No arrests have been made so far.

''The threat of arrest directed against journalists is the latest attempt to silence Pakistan's media,'' Simon said in a separate statement. ''We call on the authorities to drop charges immediately.'' CPJ has recorded numerous attacks on the Pakistani media and, to mark World Press Freedom Day this year, named Pakistan one of the world's worst press freedom backsliders.

In a letter to CPJ, received earlier this week, the Pakistani government denied that it has curtailed press freedom and claimed it has undertaken ''unprecedented'' steps for the freedom of press.

UNI