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Military Intelligence collecting information on Pakistani journalists: report
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Islamabad: The Military
Intelligence (MI) has started a country wide exercise to collect all
sorts of information from Journalists, a report said on Wednesday.
Their personnel’s are providing a
two-page form in Urdu language to all the journalists and media
representatives in the country in which they are obliged to fill all the
necessary information about themselves.
We saw names of nearly a hundred well
known media personalities, including women journalists who live on their
own and even included one columnist who is a sitting member of
Parliament, Pakistan’s leading English daily, The News reports.
The journalists and columnist stationed
in Rawalpindi come under 10 Corps, the paper quoted the MI officials as
saying. A two-member committee is assigned to gather all personal
details of the journalist, the paper added.
The News says the committee has also visited four other journalists presently working with the paper.
“As a working journalist, the
Constitution and the laws of the land do not oblige me to provide the
Military Intelligence with such personal and intimate information,” the
paper’s correspondent Mariana Baabar wrote at the end of the
questionnaire after reading dozens of questions which had to be
answered.
“I do not think the DG MI has even read
this questionnaire, which is certainly not a very professional one. But
if I were in his place I would certainly take responsibility for this
ridiculous procedure. I am certainly not very happy and there are much
better ways to acquire information, as I can understand the security
concerns that have to be taken care of but certainly not from people
like you,” General Asad Durrani, former DG MI and ISI told the paper.
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