RIP Mukarram Khan Atif, another journalist killed in Pakistan

Posted on January 19, 2012 by beenasarwar

Anguish and anger. Yet another journalist in Pakistan, Mukarram Khan Atif of Mohmand Agency, shot dead in cold-blood. The Taliban have claimed responsibility. They are out to eliminate our best, our brightest and our bravest. They will not succeed.

Read Tazeen on how Atif helped her look “beyond the stereotype of a stern and unyielding tribesman with his intelligence, valour, grace, and self effacing sense of humour. He humanized the area and its people for me, a city dweller who only conjured up images of Hakimullah Mehsud and the likes in reference with the tribesmen from FATA” (A Reluctant Mind: Another foul murder). Also read Daud Khattak’s article highlighting the threats journalists in Pakistan face: Continue reading →

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An Open Letter To Marvi Sirmed

Posted on December 30, 2011 by beenasarwar

An Open Letter To Marvi Sirmed by Usmann Rana. Thanks for speaking up.

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Thrilled to be named ‘Best Blog from a Journalist’ at the Pakistan Blog Awards 2011

Posted on December 26, 2011 by beenasarwar

Thrilled to receive the Best Blog from a Journalist at the Second Annual Pakistan Blog Awards 2011. Thanks to all those who voted and helped make it possible 🙂 Congratulations to all the other winners. Note: There are many other blogs from Pakistan that could have been in the running but didn’t nominate themselves. One expects there will be more and more competition as the Blog Awards become better known and more established.

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Another pot of rumours ruined by facts…

Posted on December 24, 2011 by beenasarwar

Also see Pakistan Media Watch about the dangers of speculation and rumour being presented as truth: “…there is a petition before the Supreme Court that is based on media reports that selectively summarise a foreign media report that paraphrases the speculation of unidentified people. As a result, the people’s perception of events may have been manipulated, and what they believe is reality may actually be a carefully designed version of reality that better serves a political end.” Complete article at: Media, Rumours and ‘Public Importance

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On Dec 16, 2011, remembering Anthony Mascarenhas

Posted on December 17, 2011 by beenasarwar

Thank you Mark Dummett, for the report in BBC today paying tribute to Anthony Mascarenhas, the brilliant and courageous Pakistani journalist who had to flee abroad in order to be able to tell the truth – Bangladesh war: The article that changed history.

Mascarenhas

“Eight journalists, including Mascarenhas, were given a 10-day tour of the province (East Pakistan). When they returned home, seven of them duly wrote what they were told to,” writes Dummett.

“But one of them refused.”

That was Mascarenhas, who died in 1986 in London.

His wife Yvonne Mascarenhas told Dummett that she remembers him coming back distraught: “I’d never seen my husband looking in such a state. Continue reading →

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Princeton Seminar Series: “Reporting South Asia”

Posted on September 28, 2011 by beenasarwar

Princeton University, series of talks about media in South Asia: a series that I kick off on Thursday Sept 29th at noon with Pakistani journalists – Standing tall, against all odds. Details for the rest of the series here, including other speakers later on: Zahid Hussain, journalist and senior editor, Newsline (Oct 13); Imran Aslam, president GEO Television, (Oct 27); Pankaj Mishra, novelist and essayist, London (Nov 10); Christophe Jaffrelot, Centre d’etudes et de recherches internationales (CERI-Sciences Po/CNRS) (Nov 17); and Steve Coll, journalist and president, New America Foundation (Dec 1)

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Tareque Masud, Mishuk Munier killed in road crash :((

Posted on August 14, 2011 by beenasarwar

Mishuk Munier at The Real News (photo TRN)

Catherine, Tareque and Nishad (Daily Star)

Shocked and grieved beyond words at this tragic news about the road accident that killed prominent Bangladeshi filmmaker Tareque Masud (The Clay Bird)  and television journalist Mishuk Munier who helped start The Real News. Mishuk’s father Prof. Munier Chowdhury of Dhaka University was “perhaps the greatest dramatist and public speaker we ever had,” Bangladeshi journalist Afsan Chowdhury once told me. “That was in 1970 and i was in the first year  of college. Prof. Chowdhury was picked up by the Jamaatis and disappeared, his body was never found”. Tareque’s wife Catherine (my classmate in college) is severely injured and in hospital. Their Nishad is a toddler, barely a year and a half old. My heart goes out to her and to the families of those killed. Here’s a link to the report of the accident in The Star, Bangladesh. TRN’s obit of Mishuk here, and The Daily Star report today ‘Fate puts a full stop‘.

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Pakistani journalists: standing tall – my article in EPW

Posted on August 11, 2011 by beenasarwar

Pakistani journalists: standing tall

Journalists in Pakistan walk a tightrope between the military and the militants, risking their lives as never before to get the truth into the public domain. They have always had to tiptoe around directly challenging the concepts upheld by the security establishment. But as a Pakistani writer and filmmaker writes, the media in Pakistan is still standing.

By: Beena Sarwar 

Economic and Political Weekly, India | Vol XLVI No.29 July 16, 2011 | PDF | Text below

Continue reading →

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Pakistan army should butt out of politics: Asma Jahangir says it like it is

Posted on May 30, 2011 by beenasarwar

Clip from Crossfire in which Asma Jahangir, the indomitable Chairperson Emeritus of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan and President of the Supreme Court Bar Association of Pakistan, says it like it about the Pakistan armed forces, in a talk show with the  ever sensationalist Meher Bokhari, on Dunya TV on May 26, 2011. View the full programme at the PkPolitics website. The clip posted here starts with Meher Bokari summing up the current discussion – the demands on one hand to support the army, and on the other for army accountability.  Continue reading →

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Free Dorothy; Osama; ‘agencies’; and some great links

Posted on May 17, 2011 by beenasarwar

Post sent earlier to my yahoogroup

Dear all,

I’m on the train to New York where Aman ki Asha has been nominated for an award at the International Newspaper Media Association (INMA) annual congress. Group Director Jang Group Shahrukh Hasan will be there and so will Laleh Habib, the Aman ki Asha coordinator.

The train left on the dot at the scheduled time, 11.13 am. And it has wi-fi, so I can catch upon things. This is a year of reunions for me. My 25th college reunion in two weeks, and this past weekend many many fellow Niemans at occasions honouring the outgoing curator Bob Giles. Many journalists requested everyone to keep the pressure on for the release of Al Jazeera journalist Dorothy Parvaz (Nieman ’09) who has been missing for over two weeks now, since she entered Syria… Continue reading →

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