Author: Mark Jurkowitz
Publication: The Boston Globe
Date: November 7, 2001
URL: http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/311/living/India_Pakistan_conflict_affecting_war_coverage-.shtml
Concerns that the government of
Pakistan is refusing to give visas to some reporters of Indian ethnicity
trying to cover the war in Afghanistan has prompted several journalistic
organizations to lodge protests over an issue that appears to be an outgrowth
of the simmering tension between India and Pakistan.
On Oct. 29, the New York-based Committee
to Protect Journalists sent a letter to Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf
stating that it is ''extremely concerned by your government's apparent
refusal to process visa applications from journalists of Indian descent.
... Because the current crisis is one of truly global proportions, it is
crucial that journalists from around the world are granted unfettered access
to countries currently on the `front lines' such as Pakistan.''
"We really did wait until there
was a pretty obvious pattern," said Kavita Menon, the committee's Asia
program coordinator. ''This is one of the most systematic, far-reaching
efforts to restrict access I've seen so far.''
Sreenath Sreenivasan, co-founder
of the New York-based South Asian Journalists Association, which represents
about 800 journalists of South Asian origin in the United States and Canada,
worries that Pakistani restrictions on journalists of Indian heritage will
also be harmful to their career development.
''These are the kind of reporters
we need to send to that part of the world. ... You have a language, you
have a knowledge, you have an understanding of that part of the world,''
said Sreenivasan, who is also a professor at Columbia's Graduate School
of Journalism. ''In this country, foreign reporting is an honor. It's a
privilege. ... It's hard enough to get a foreign posting when you're a
minority. It's unfair for Pakistan or any other country [to discriminate]
based on citizenship.''
Among those journalists who have
been unable to get Pakistani visas are a number of British Broadcasting
Corp. staffers based in New Delhi; CNN New Delhi bureau chief Satinder
Bindra, who is a Canadian citizen; Moni Basu, an Indian citizen who is
a US permanent resident and works at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution;
and Raja Mishra, a Boston Globe Staffer and Nebraska native. Basu said
that after some bureaucratic delay, Pakistani officials told her ''that
if I had other colleagues who could go, the paper should send them.'' Mishra
said he was told by the Pakistani embassy that the ''government established
a new policy essentially banning Indian reporters, regardless of their
nationality.'' Mishra called that ''racial profiling of the most blatant
kind.''
Asad Hayauddin, press attache at
the Pakistani embassy in Washington, acknowledged that ''India and Pakistan
are not on the best of terms'' but said journalists ''have not been denied
or cannot get visas. There is just a procedure to be followed.'' According
to Hayauddin, the embassy has the authority to issue 30-day visas to journalists
of non-Indian heritage as long as the paperwork is forwarded to the Ministry
of Information. Journalists who hold either Indian citizenship or are of
Indian descent must undergo a lengthier process that includes a review
of the application by the Ministry of Interior and Ministry of Information.
He said Pakistani officials are ''still working'' on Basu's application,
and that Mishra ''has a chance to get in.''
Mishra's Globe colleague, Indira
Lakshmanan, a US citizen of Indian heritage, was allowed into Pakistan
when she arrived there from Hong Kong in mid-September and subsequently
had her visa extended and marked for reentry.
Hayauddin said his country's visa
policy is ''guided by bilateral agreements between India and Pakistan.
Because of security concerns, a certain restrictive policy has been adopted.''
Navtej Sarna, a spokesman for the
Indian embassy in Washington, said, ''I'm not aware of any such [bilateral]
agreement.'' He also indicated that while a Pakistani journalist would
have to undergo a different process to get a visa to India, his country
does not differentiate between any other journalist and journalists of
Pakastani heritage who are not Pakistani citizens. ''We go by nationality,''
said Sarna, ''If a person is an American citizen, we say his ethnicity
does not make a difference.''
With the war raging in Afghanistan,
there are a lot more Indian journalists trying to get to Pakistan now than
there are Pakistani journalists trying to get to India. And Sreenivasan,
of the South Asian Journalists Association, said all the complaints he
is getting are about restrictions in Pakistan. Basu said that while she
hasn't gotten a visa, several other journalists from her newsroom were
allowed to go to Pakistan. While Mishra remains frustrated in his efforts
to reach Pakistan, three other non-Indian Globe reporters who applied when
he did or afterward were allowed to go there.
Overseas, there have also been problems
for Indian journalists. A senior BBC journalist who asked not to be named
said in an e-mail that he and a colleague were told by Pakistan's Ministry
of Information that reporters with any kind of ''Indian connection'' would
need Interior Ministry clearance and ''they seemed to be passing us from
pillar to post.'' A CNN spokeswoman confirmed that Bindra, the network's
New Delhi bureau chief and a Canadian citizen now stationed in northern
Afghanistan, was turned down for a Pakistani visa and ''we're not sure
of the circumstances.''
Subhranshu Choudhary, a producer
in the BBC's South Asia Bureau in New Delhi, said there are more than 10
journalists in that bureau (including one citizen of the United Kingdom)
who applied nearly two months ago and have still not been granted a Pakistani
visa while non-Indians got visas within ''hours.''
''I applied just two or three days
after September 11. I haven't heard anything back,'' he said in an interview.
''If I give them a call, they will say it's still in process.''
