The ABC News blog The Blotter reports that the ISI did a number on an American news correspondent and her Pakistani photographer sometime recently:
New York Times correspondent Carlotta Gall tells ABC News she was assaulted by plain-clothed government security agents while reporting in Quetta, a Pakistani city near the Afghan frontier where NATO suspects the Taliban hides its shadow government.
Akhtar Soomro, a freelance Pakistani photographer working with Gall, was detained for five-and-a-half hours. According to Gall, the agents broke down the door to her hotel room, after she refused to let them enter, and began to seize her notebooks and laptop. When she tried to stop them, she says one of the men punched her twice in the face and head.
“I fell backwards onto a coffee table smashing the crockery,” she recalled in a written account of the incident. “I have heavy bruising on my arms, on my temple and my cheekbone, and swelling on my left eye and a sprained knee.”
Gall says the agents accused her and Soomro of trying to meet the Taliban. They identified themselves as working for Pakistan’s Special Branch, an undercover police department, but Gall said other local reporters identified them as employees from one of the country’s two powerful spy agencies: Inter-Services Intelligence or Military Intelligence.
The Committee to Protect Journalists ranked Pakistan the “third most dangerous” place in the world to work in 2006, after two journalists died in violent circumstances, and more than a dozen others were abducted or assaulted by state authorities.
In its annual report, Reporters without Borders complained that in Pakistan “investigative journalists are constantly targeted by military security services, which have no hesitation in harassing anyone they find troublesome.” It was the first reported incident of Pakistani agents belting a female reporter.
Gall said the Minister of State for Information, Tariq Azeem Khan, apologized for the incident and helped secure the release of the photographer and Gall’s belongings. But she says he told her to inform Pakistani authorities ahead of future visits to Quetta “to avoid such difficulties.”
I will limit my comments, many of which would be obvious anyway. It is worth pointing out however that this incident should remind us that as difficult as it is to be a foreign correspondent in a country where political conditions are dodgy, local freelancers such as Ms. Gall’s photographer are even more exposed. I commend the brother for his courage and I hope he stays safe.
Why the title “The ISI always rings twice?”. Maybe “Not without my Photograph(er)” or “The Lady from Quetta” or if you want to get in the spirit of the season, “Carlotta’s Web”?
Quit pussyfootin’ Siddhartha. Where’s the macaca music poll?
Is there any info on why they were detained? “Trying to meet the Taliban” is hardly just cause. Meeting Taliban who are receiving funds and support from the ISI, however, invites danger.
And apologies by the way for the threadjack above.
I doff my hat before all investigative journalists, especially the freelancers. It’s hard out there on the streets, especially if you’re perceived as a collaborator (whatever that’s taken to mean locally).
Read the comments on the post at the ABC blog, scary.
Preston, You hit the nail on the head. Scary and then some. They need an SM intern down there to sift through the insanity that people are posting.
On second thought, I wouldn’t wish that job on any mutineer.
Why is this not surprising? Haven’t these people heard of Daniel Pearl? Why was the reporter (if she was) trying to meet Al Queda? What is Al Queda going to tell these renegade reporters what we already don’t know? It’s almost irritating!
Wow, that’s a lot of geniuses in one place.
God bless Sepia Mutiny.
Wake up to the real world darling.
So too bad, little girl, stay away from things you are too gullible and silly to understand.
No sympathy from me for this little girl.
About a girl that was in a frat-house she shouldn’t have been in. She said one thing happened, when in fact, nothing happened.
Hey lady, how’s about you get the hell out of Paki while you can? Poor baby. (sarcasm intended)
maybe she was dating one or more of the officials? and it was a domestic dispute
Have these idiotic women ever heard of Daniel Pearl?
Particularly scary to me as a female are these comments about Ms. Gall from the ABC blog. What’s up with the patronizing, sexist, know your place garbage?
Sorry if I’m threadjacking guys.
Crap!
I meant to italicize all the comments above my:
Particularly scary to me as a female are these comments about Ms. Gall from the ABC blog. What’s up with the patronizing, sexist, know your place garbage?
Sorry!
I am surprised you think you know everything about the Al Qaeda. I think she was doing an essential and dangerous job, and I have to bow before her courage.
Sadly as a female when you write you get used to it. There will always be some tool out there that will tell you that the reason you fucked up or got something wrong was because you are a woman!
I’m wondering the same thing. I remember attending a lecture by Associated Press and New Yorker writer Kathy Ganon, the longest serving reporter in Afghanistan (not Pakistan, I know, but she did have to deal with the Taliban there). She had close ties to many Taliban leaders and was still able to remain critical as a reporter. Perhaps staying safe is a matter of networking and establishing a rapport with the authorities – something I imagine would be very hard for a newer, younger reporter (and even more if it’s a female and/or freelancer). I haven’t the faintest idea how you would go about earning their trust, though.
And y’all, I wouldn’t bother bringing up comments left on stories in major news websites here. Those comments are always like that. For god’s sake, do NOT try to knock some sense into those people; that’s not why they go there, so you’d be wasting your time.
🙂 Awww, he probably still the sniffles. I hope you’re feeling better, Siddhartha.
What more is a reporter going to unearth? They hate the west or western ideals 20% more than they did last year? I’m not trying to be scarcastic at all, I genuinely don’t get it.
We don’t know if she and Soomro were meeting with the Taliban/Al Quaeda do we?
Only that she was reporting in Pakistan on something and that someone wanted to send her a message to get the fuck out.
She could have been uncovering a story about arms dealings between the police and the Taliban for all we know. (Not that I’m trying to imply that is happening.)
For example, how much the Al Qaeda and the Taleban is being covertly supported by the ISI and the Pakistani army might be information crucial to future American foreign policy.
And y’all, I wouldn’t bother bringing up comments left on stories in major news websites here. Those comments are always like that. For god’s sake, do NOT try to knock some sense into those people; that’s not why they go there, so you’d be wasting your time.
I know, I know! I’m so stubborn though, that I can’t just heave a sigh and roll. The vitriol was even spastic enough to scare Preston 😉
No, Shruti. You can’t show weakness with these people. Next thing you know, he’ll be drinking tea with Al-Qaeda.
On-the-record access to the Taliban or some other militant group in Afghanistan would be a huge scoop for a western reporter. There’s plenty to learn, unless you believe only what the monolithic American corporate press tells you, which is pretty much just what the Bush administration wants you to know: Taliban = Al-Qaeda = bad. It’s more complicated than that, even to people with only passing knowledge of the region. For example, are there foreign (Arab) fighters among the Taliban? How much support do militants receive from the ISI? Are the militants organized or are they just a rag-tag hit-and-run menace? How much money do they get from the (now record) opium trade? We in the west know next to nothing about Pakistan and Afghanistan in general and even less about the current military situation. It’s in no government’s interest for the public to know about the graft, double-dealing, drug-running, and US and Pakistani complicity in the resurgency of the militancy in Afghanistan. No reporter snooping around is going to have an easy time of it.
I’m not saying there is completely no value to any of it. My whole point is if the Taliban claims that they have ISI connection (big surprise) where is the credibility in that statement? The Taliban or ISI? Will the GWB administration change it’s policy towards who they extend their kinship towards as a result of it? I guess my whole apprehension is with all these dangerous missions reporters are taking on and the true end result of them doing so.
Does it really fing matter how much support those Taliban SOBs get from the ISI? What matters is the fact that they are getting support, however fing miniscule, from the ISI. This reporter should realize that and so should the US government. India is a better ally in the War on Terror than Pakistan.
Even tourists can end up in trouble in Pakistan. I would ideally love to visit there, check out Lahore, Multan, some of the smaller towns and villages, etc. The country has a wealth of historical, cultural, and natural beauty and heritage…but it’s just too dangerous. You never know when the authorities will suddenly decide to detain you (or worse).
Looks like we have some leakage from the ABC blog…
That last statement is so petulant it makes me laugh, and totally destroys any point you were trying to make. Since when is this a competition between India and Pakistan about who gets to play in the big fun War on Terror?
I can’t believe there’s actual discussion about whether there’s value in reporting on al Quaeda, the Taliban, and related stories in Pakistan. Yes, these reporters risk life and limb, but they should be commended for it, not castigated. And if they’re killed while reporting these stories, it’s not their fault, any more than a firefighter who was killed running into the WTC in an attempt to save others would be “at fault.” They do their duty, and their duty puts them in danger. Yes, the danger is to some degree foreseeable, but that hardly makes their duty irrelevant or useless. Quite the opposite, I think.