A Sign of Things To Come?

shri veeresh ji -- it seems old age is definitely catching up with you -- i never said to you a ``few days ago`` that PTV was the ``fountain of truth`` -- what i said was that being state-owned and closely monitored (read manipulated) for PTV to show something like this was an surprising thing -- not the same as calling it the fountain of truth -- `sign of things to come` -- surely, you tell me even you missed the irony in that headline, because it has a question mark to it -- so if ptv allows indian actresses on it for 40 mins is it a `sign of things to come ?` -- as in does it imply that things might now change and that ptv shed its overtly anti-india stance -- strange you didnt read that shri veeresh -- but dont worry we all know who is being laughed at here --

seriously veeresh, jokes and taunts aside, where and how in the world do you make these connections???

shri veeresh ji, iss ko bhi phur lain - and others who are quick to pass judgment on the press in Pakistan but have little knowledge of the environment it functions in or the professional hazards that many journalists have to face --


(And this is NOT from Dawn, from the Daily Times -- and SAFMA in Pakistan is a branch of SAFMA India) --


Pakistan — a vibrant press under constraint since 2003

* Three journalists and an author killed, says SAFMA’s ‘Media Monitor2003’ report

By Waqar Gillani

LAHORE The press in Pakistan, last year, remained fiercely independent in its criticism of the country’s military regime, observed the South Asian Free Media Association in its recently published report, “Media Monitor 2003”.

It claimed the rise of the religious right and growing militancy in the name of religion caused problems for various parts of the media: the secular section of the press came remained under pressure while journalists supporting orthodox religious views came down hard on the Musharraf government.

The report observed the most important development for the media took place in October 2002 when the outgoing military regime promulgated a set of six press ordinances before inducting the elected government. These were denounced by the All Pakistan Newspaper Society (APNS) (representing the country’s publishers) and the Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists (PFUJ) (of working journalists) as “illegitimate, unethical and unconstitutional”.

The SAFMA critically scrutinised the ordinances and proposed six alternative draft laws.

Meanwhile, the authorities withheld government advertisements in a bid to arm-twist certain newspapers. The Sindhi press, known for its hard-hitting reporting and the Nawa-i-Waqt group of newspapers were both targeted by the government. The report observed that 12 Sindhi newspapers had to wind up their operations in recent years due to lack of government advertising.

One of the most serious attempts by the government to check the free flow of information occurred when the authorities blocked Internet news sites, on the pretext of censoring pornographic material. Three journalists and an author lost their lives in December as they were preparing a documentary on the Taliban. The incident, reports SAFMA, caught the attention of the international media.

Attacks on the Pakistani press:

January 1: Police detained several journalists who attended a press conference held by the Lahore High Court Bar Association to condemn the suspension construction work on a new library in the court building by the bench.

January 6: Javed Akhtar Malik, president of the Faisalabad Union of Journalists, was attacked by unknown assailants but managed to escape unhurt.

January7: A group of armed men attacked the OK Cable Network in Peshawar and smashed its equipment.

January 10: A New York-based Pakistani journalist, Zahid Ghani, was accused by the government of “harming Pakistan’s relations with the United States” when he criticised the US for deporting Pakistanis in large numbers in the wake of 9/11. Also, a group of armed men attacked a cable network company in Peshawar, destroying its equipment and assaulting up its staff.

January 14: The Lahore High Court dismissed a petition seeking to reverse the government’s decision to ban Indian television channels.

January 18: Federal Interior Minister Faisal Saleh Hayat served a Rs 500 million notice to The Friday Times for printing “libellous material” about him. The management of the weekly magazine claimed it had published nothing that other print media had not already reported. Three days later, the minister denied a news report that claimed he had been convicted of a crime before he joined the cabinet and issued a legal notice to Urdu language daily, Khabrain. Later, he admitted in the National Assembly that his name was on the Exit Control List which bars high profile figures wanted in criminal cases from leaving the country.

January 19: Intelligence agents intercepted and thrashed a radio journalist who tried to interview Sehba Musharraf, wife of the Pakistani president, during her visit to the Alhamra cultural complex in Lahore.

January 21: Unidentified assailants killed Fazal Wahab, a freelance writer, as he sat in a shop in the northwestern town of Mingora. He was writing a book, “Mullah ka Kirdar” (The Role of Mullah).

February 1: A journalist, who tried to take a picture of Sehba Musharraf at an art exhibition in Lahore was roughed up by her security guards.

February 22: Two henchmen of Afghan commander Hazrat Ali visited the office of The Frontier Post in Peshawar, threatening staff member, Syed Anwar, with “terrible personal consequences” for reporting that the commander had been arrested by US troops for drug smuggling and helping Al Qaeda fighters escape from military operations in Tora Bora.

March 3: Local journalist Imran Barkat was attacked and seriously injured by drug peddlers in Khankah Doggaran.

March 5: Sheikh Latif, a journalist based in Dera Ghazi Khan, went missing after visiting an influential man in his locality who owed him money.

March 10: A Lahore-based weekly, Independent, complained that Punjab Home Secretary Ejaz Shah threatened its publisher, Ilyas Meraj, by telephone, warning him against terrible consequences for “working against national interests”. Shah, a retired military officer, who formerly served the Inter-Service Intelligence (ISI), advised the journal to “roll back” its alleged “campaign against the army” if it wanted “to stay in business and stay safe”.

March 16: Mahmood Khattak, a Peshawar-based correspondent with Dawn, reported that police stopped his car and harassed him while he was travelling to Tank from Peshawar.

March 22: About 30 journalists from Peshawar, invited by the NWFP government to the chief minister’s house for a press briefing, were not allowed to enter the place and Security personnel allegedly insulted them on their arrival.

March 24: Intelligence agents picked up journalist and human rights activist, Akhtar Baloch, in Hyderabad. They detained him for three days.

April 11: Policemen thrashed Ashfaq Ali, a senior sub-editor at The News in Karachi, after a police van brushed his motorcycle.

April 12: The Pakistan Telecommunications Company Limited (PTCL) blocked 400 “indecent websites”, bringing the total number of the banned websites to more than 1,800.

April 13: Military officials in the tribal territory of North Waziristan allegedly harassed Hayatullah Khan, a correspondent with the Daily Ausaf, and his family after he reported the “misuse” of military vehicles in the area. His brothers and daughter were expelled from an army-administered school.

April 19: Amir Hashmi, a bookmaker, and his accomplices attacked the office of Khabrain in Sargodha. The newspaper had published reports about his match-fixing activities.

May 14: Paramilitary forces allegedly detained Sarwar Mujahid, a journalist covering issues pertaining to the military farm management in Okara. Mr Mujahid was accused of being a terrorist who was inciting the public against the Rangers. An anti-terrorist court remanded him in police custody for four days. His family complained of receiving threatening telephone calls.

May 22: Police beat journalists outside the Punjab Assembly in Lahore. Officer Aftab Cheema ordered the constables to baton-charge the journalists when they asked him to explain why an assembly member had been arrested.

May 29: Press photographers were denied entry into the Supreme Court of Pakistan to cover the proceedings of a case against a leader of the lawyers’ community.

May 31: Authorities blocked access to the Washington-based website, South Asia Tribune. A Tribune spokesman said in a statement the Pakistan Internet Exchange, established in 2002 to offer a single point of access to the ISPs in Pakistan, executed the punitive action.

June 10: A court in Peshawar sentenced sub-editor Munawar Mohsin of The Frontier Post to life imprisonment for publishing a blasphemous letter in the January 29, 2001, edition of the newspaper.

June 27: The information ministry instructed a newspaper not to publish a statement issued by the exiled former prime minister of the country, Nawaz Sharif. Also, Karachi’s Nazim stopped female models from posing for commercial advertisements, calling the practice “obscene and vulgar”.

July 16: Police detained the chief editor of a Lahore-based monthly, Shahrag-e-Pakistan, for allegedly publishing material against the government.

The same day, the government reinforced its ban on the broadcast of Indian television channels by cable operators.

August 8: PEMRA cancelled licenses of six cable operators for violating its rules.

August 15: Authorities in Khuzdar, Balochistan, detained Rasheed Azam, a local journalist, for allegedly distributing anti-army posters.

August 18: Unidentified assailants killed Liaqat Ali, secretary general of the press club in Nowshera.

August 19: Police in Peshawar entered without a warrant the house of a journalist who worked with the Pushto language service of the Voice of America radio station. He was accused of sheltering an outlaw.

In a separate incident, six unidentified gunmen killed Raja Ejaz, a reporter who worked with Khabrain, at his native town of Pind Dadan Khan. His colleagues described his murder as a target killing, but the motives could not be ascertained.

August 30: Police in the southern city of Hyderabad arrested seven local journalists during a visit of the Pakistani president to the city. The same day, Federal Information Minister Sheikh Rashid said the government received 13 times the amount of coverage given to the opposition on the state-run television channel P1V.

October 4: Unidentified assailants killed a journalist, Amir Bukhsh Brohi, in the town of Shikarpur. The 28-year-old journalist worked for a Sindhi language newspaper, Kawish, and was the president of Shikarpur Press Club.

October 17: Members of the Shakargarh Press Club protested against a threat allegedly issued by a paramilitary forces officer to a local journalist, Inamullah Butt.

October 19: Supporters of Tariq Pervez Janjua, Vice President of the Lahore High Court Bar Association, allegedly attacked press photographers taking Mr Janjua’s pictures after he secured bail following his arrest.

October 21: Amnesty International voiced concern over reports that the Sindh provincial government was interfering with police investigations into the murder of journalist Amir Baksh Brohi in Shikarpur.

October 24: Islamists defaced billboards picturing female models across the Faisalabad district.

October 25: The Information Minister of the North West Frontier Province (NWFP) denied reports that the ruling coalition, Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA), was planning to cancel the declarations of newspapers publishing “obscene material”.

October 26: An association of Muslim clerics, Ittehad Tanzim-i-mema (ITU), in the town of Bara in the tribal belt of Pakistan’s northwest threatened to demolish the house of a local journalist, Nasrullah, for reporting the activities of the ITU.

October 30: Journalists covering the Punjab Assembly proceedings in Lahore staged a protest outside the assembly against the thrashing being given to a colleague by a sanitary inspector of a local hospital.

November 1: Journalist unions in the NWFP asked the provincial authorities to take action against the criminals who tried to attack Jehangir Shehzad, a senior crime reporter in Peshawar, for his investigative features.

November 10: Police in the town of Farooqabad allegedly registered a fake case against a local journalist, Mohammad Sarwar, after he reported alleged misdeeds of the police.

November 14: A female employee of the private Karakuram International University, in the northern city of Gilgit, claimed she was sacked because her brother, Mehboob Khayam, had reported the alleged malpractices of the education institute.

November 19: Journalists in Hyderabad protested the arrest of a colleague, Anwar Siyal, and his son, Zulfiqar, for lodging a police complaint against an army officer.

November 23: Unidentified men torched the car of Amir Mir, senior assistant editor of the Herald magazine, parked outside his house in Lahore. The miscreants also fired at a watchman who rushed to the crime scene. Mr Mir was accused of “subverting national interests” by filing investigative reports.

November 26: A senior police officer ordered an inquiry into the complaint filed by three journalists from Faisalabad that the local police raided their office, damaging furniture and hauling them up without justification.

November 30: Abdul Hafeez, an employee of a Karachi-based newspaper, was shot dead in the Mehmoodabad locality by an unknown man, while he was on his way to his printing press.

December 4: The New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) said in a letter to President General Pervez Musharraf that his government was becoming increasingly intolerant of press freedom in Pakistan.

December 9: Five men assaulted journalist Abbas Awan in Sargodha. Reasons remain unknown.

December 10: Journalists’ rights organisation, Reporters Sans Frontieres (RSF), urged the French government to take up the case of Pakistani journalist Amir Mir with the country’s prime minister, Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali, during his forthcoming visit to France.

December 18: Two French journalists, Marc Epstein and Jean-Paul Guilloteau of the weekly L’Expresse, were arrested along with their Pakistani colleague, Khawar Mehdi Rizvi, in Balochistan for unauthorised activities. Rizvi was charged with hiring local Pashtun tribesmen to pose as Taliban militants for the French journalists who were tried for travelling to restricted areas without meeting visa requiremenst. The Frenchmen were released on January 12, 2004, after a court waived the six-month prison sentence handed to them, but Mr Rizvi’s trial continues.

December 27: The Pakistan Telecommunications Company Limited (PTCL) reportedly asked its international Internet transit provider, FlAG Telecom, to block all pornographic and “objectionable” websites. Meanwhile, a provincial committee of the Council of Pakistan Newspaper Editors condemned the arson attack on a Sindhi language newspaper organisation.

December 31: The Sindh High Court issued notice to the government’s deputy attorney general and the director general of the Federal Investigation Agency in response to a habeas corpus petition moved by the family of Khawar Mehdi Rizvi, arrested along with French journalists earlier in the month.

Dear Omar ji, please make up your mind. A few days ago you told us that PTV was the Fountain of all Truth and then next you are saying hahah to me? What to say Sir, my false teeth are dropping out in confusion and my walking stick she is quivering.

I present to you:-

a) #140 by omar_r_quraishi on May 8, 2004 5:07am PT . . .on PTV !!! hahah -- you have been watching the wrong channel my friend -- that isnt bootlicking by the english class, that is boot-licking by those whom the govt can buy, and it doesnt matter what language you speak -- veeresh sahib, i pity you, seriously -- the likes of old fogies like you who believe that what they think is the home truth --

b) A Sign of Things To Come? . . . by Omar R. Quraishi . . . Watching PTV recently on a Sunday night, one happened to come across something quite extraordinary, perhaps a sign of things to come.

The jury rests, my Lord. Actually it is rolling all over the floor with laughter!!

veeresh sahib ihave better things than to convince wise sages like you on anything -- and try and have an argument without making a personal dig at your interlocutor -- surely they teach you that in delhi, or dont they?

on PTV !!! hahah -- you have been watching the wrong channel my friend -- that isnt bootlicking by the english class, that is boot-licking by those whom the govt can buy, and it doesnt matter what language you speak -- veeresh sahib, i pity you, seriously -- the likes of old fogies like you who believe that what they think is the home truth --

veeresh bhai, pray tell me whats the fact that i wrote an editorial i wrote on macedonia have to do with your (generally specious) argument -- convince my own people about what -- how to never fall into the trap of a verbal duel with the likes of you?

Omar 130 says - ````sahib the kind of urdu fundo journalists that you met are ridiculed by other journalists in pakistan too -- and not just from the english press - you can normally tell them about , especially in the foreign office briefings when they ask loaded/leading questions or instead of asking questions offer their own comments (read praise) on a certain policy (tho this doesn`t happen so much at the FO briefings but at some given by the prez himself) ````

Long ago, maybe courtesy a stint in Holland where the system is geared up to believe and allow for the fact that everybody has a role in society, I learnt never to ridicule anybody.

I think there are more ground realities I learnt about Pakistan from some Pakistani people I`ve met, including the Urdu journos, than I have from years of perusing Pakistani English media. And, to tell you the truth, I`ve seen enough boot licking by the English speaking class on PTV to put forth the observation that this not restricted to the Urdu speaking.

Omar ji, you don`t have to convince me; you need to convince your own people. Editorials about Macedonian murders pointing fingers at Americans is fine and dandy the day you have some introspection.

Romair #135`
``There is a simple way to get a statistics of which portion of Pakistan reads Dawn and other English magazines``

It is simplest to look at official figures first:
http://www.pakboi.gov.pk/PDF/circulation_newspapers_by%20languagetype.pdf

There is a simple way to get a statistics of which portion of Pakistan reads Dawn and other English magazines:

What percentage of Pakistani population can speak English?
What percentage of Pakistani population has access to the Internet and can send e-mails?
What percentage of the Paksitani population has enough spare money to buy Dawn?
What is the total circulation of all newspapers in Pakistan?

The Middle class of any society, as a whole, has to be the middle 33%-66%. Doesn`t it? I don`t have the exact statistics for the above. However, I do know that out of a population of 145 million, only 1 million Pakistanis have Internet access at home. So that is about .075%. I don`t know how many access it via cafes. Pakistan`s literacy rate is around 40%. Out of that, how many can read and speak English at the Dawn level? My guess would be perhaps 5% of the total population.

I read in a Dawn article that the total circulation of all newspapers, of all langauges combined in Pakistan, is 3 million. Let`s say around 1 million is for English newspapers. The rest for Urdu, Sindhi etc. So 1 million papers, with a target audience of 5% of the population who can understand them, out of which a smaller number will pay to buy them. How can that be considered a middle class audience?

Perhaps the middle class of parts of Karachi. If that. But Karachi`s middle class is very different from Pakistan`s middle class. The middle class of Pakistan, as a whole, cannot even understand the English in Dawn, much less buy one. 4-5 emails in English from small cities, does not constitute middle class.

One could argue that perhaps the Urdu Jang newspaper caters to the middle class of Paksitan, as a whole. Since the middle class can read and write Urdu.

well you are entitled to your opinion romair - as for who is to be praised for the current level of press freedom i would say its partially the govt and partially other institutions and the press itself too -- but i speak from the inside -- i dont think my definition is differen -- what i am saying is that a lot of the people who read dawn are middle class -- romair, every day i receive 8-10 emails from people on one address that i use -- and around 50 per cent are from small towns and cities -- people who use net cafes -- t hings are changing -- not that i am saying a revolution is happening -- but change ishappening and it will take a while before many educated pakistanis even realize it --

omar #132: I agree with most of what you are saying, but not all.

``a lot of dawn`s readership is middle class``

Your defintion of upper-class is different from mine. In Pakistan, how many people can read English, at the level that it is written in Dawn? Perhaps 5% of the population. If that. That automatically makes them non-middle class. Karachi is an upper-class city, as a whole. It is far richer than the rest of Pakistan. And far more literate. I think it has a literacy rate of around 80%, while the rest of Pakistan is at around half of that.

A guy with a Suzuki 800, one A/C and a small apt, who can afford Dawn, is part of the upper-middle class of Pakistan, statistically. All of us on Chowk are part of the very upper class, considering less than 1% of Pakistanis have Internet connection at home. However, if you ask all these people, they will not consider themselves part of the upper-middle or upper class, respectively.

Dawn, due to its choice of language, is an upper-middle or upper class paper, because no one else can read it. Its market is perhaps 5% of Pakistan, i.e the English speakers. How can that be considered a middle class group? Perhaps, part of its audience is urban middle class of Karachi. But urban middle class of Karachi, is part of the upper-middle class of the rest of Pakistan.

And generally, secularism is an upper-middle to upper class English speaking phenomenon, in Pakistan. Not all, but most. The middle to lower class are generally non-secular. Not MMA types, but people who do want some Islam in their public life. The surveys indicate this. I would say perhaps 5% of Pakistan is purely secular. 10% is maulvi of the MMA variety. And the remaining is in betweeen, i.e. some religion in public life, but no MMA, i.e. moderately Islamic or Sufi-like Islamic.

So since Dawn, due to the English language, is catering to the top 5% of Pakistan as its audience (call them middle or upper or whatever you want). And since this group has secular tendencies, Dawn does as well. Takbeer etc. cater to the non-secular crowd, hence it pushes that.

This, and not pro and/or anti-govt. tendencies is the dividing lines, for the press. English press will be pro secular govts., generally. Urdu press will be pro-non-secular govts., generally. Musharraf is in between, more towards the secular side, in policies, than non-secular. Hence, the Urdu press dislikes him more than the English press. When he declared himself, Ata-turk, most of the English press fell at his feet. If he were to declare himself Amir-ul-Momineen, the Urdu press would do the same.........

On the whole, both the Urdu and English press, in Pakistan, seem very free. Which is good. And the credit of that must be given to the current govt......

romair -- in the short time that i have right now -- a lot of dawn`s readership is middle class -- in karachi for example, the bulk of the reader is not in clifton/defence but gulshan i iqbal, pechs, the society areas, nazimabad, landhi, f b area malir, gulistani jauhar -- the reason is simple, they have a much larger population -- and this is borne out if you were take a look at the letters we get every day -- of the 150-200 letters received, a good 40-50 per cent are from karachi and out of these over half are from these areas -- besides, there are other indicators as well -- as for drinking or not drinking, well, i am a teetolar and i am not religious in the conventional sense -- and there will surely be some urdu newspaper columnists who will drink -- i dont think ayaz amir writes nationalistic stuff at all -- he is sharply critical of probably the whole concept of nationalism -- his critical columns are sometimes translated -- you can see some of them in the evening papers which come out from karachi like awam and qaumi akhbar -- and if it suits takbeer, it too would carry a translation of a column by someone writing for an english newspaper -- also there are many columnists who are secular but s till pro govt and very pro-establishment -- a lot of the retired ambassadors, generals etc come under this category and i suppose dawn can be accused of having the most perhaps -- tho now we are trying to change this, partly because some of the assistant editors themselves are now relatively young -- me and three of my other colleagues on the editorial board are all under 40 -- (i am 32) btw takbeer has done some excellent investigative work, work that many in the english press later picked up on -- i suppose the lines between the urdu and english press are more defined in terms of their columnists, editorials rather than basic news coverage --

omar_qureshi #130: ``ayaz amir`s english columns are frequently translated and carried by several urdu newspapers``

He writes quite a bit of nationalistic stuff, also. So I am not surprised that he is translated. However, I was specfically talking about columns in which he mentions his wine-drinking habits. Can you point me to some Urdu translations of those? Do English columnists write as frequently about such habits in the Urdu press, as they do in the English press? Has Ayaz Amir, himself, mentioned his drinking in the Urdu press?

``u too seem to be generalizing -- a lot of the upper class is not as secular as you think just as a lot of the middle class is not as non-secular as you make it out to be --``

I don`t think I am generalizing. I stated, ``The English press caters to the upper class and the expats. They are the only ones who can read English. Nearly all of whom are Westernized and relatively secular......The Urdu press caters to middle and lower middle urban class. Most of whom are non-secular, and religious.``

English press writers are generally secular. I read most of them. Wouldn`t you put yourself in that category? Cowasjee, Irfan Hussain, Ayaz Amir, Sethi, Khaled Ahmad, Kamran Shafi, Ejaz Haider, Masooda Bano, Amina Jilani, etc. etc. Can you list ten main ones who are not? Perhaps Nasim Zehra and a few others.

Obviously they write for their audience. I don`t think, ``a lot`` of the upper class is non- secular. As you have stated. I would say a lot is secular (at least by Pakistani standards). Chowk certainly is a secular-minded site, dominated by the upper class. And most of the middle and lower class in non-secular. It is indicated by surveys. I didn`t say all. Just most.

One caters to one`s audience, in terms of secularism and non-secularism. This is different from freedom of speech. One can be secular or non, and still practice free speech. In fact, Urdu reliigious editorials are far more anti-Musharraf than the English ones.

After all, there is a reason, that you, with secular views, are writing for Dawn, and not for Takbeer. It makes perfect business sense. One writes for the paper one believes in, and to an audience with who one shares a common outlook on society.......Dawn would not appeal much to the middle and lower middle class. And Takbeer would not appeal much to the Chowk crowd....

veeresh sahib the kind of urdu fundo journalists that you met are ridiculed by other journalists in pakistan too -- and not just from the english press -- you can normally tell them about , especially in the foreign office briefings when they ask loaded/leading questions or instead of asking questions offer their own comments (read praise) on a certain policy (tho this doesn`t happen so much at the FO briefings but at some given by the prez himself) -- as for observations on amritsar, yes i can give them but i wouldn`t insist that they are the truth and nothing but the truth, they might be my opinion of what i saw and that is all -- wouldn`t argue with someone from amritsar or indian punjab or hey even delhi -- romair -- ayaz amir`s english columns are frequently translated and carried by several urdu newspapers, as as ardeshir cowasjee`s -- and many urdu columnists do read english papers and frequently quote material that they read by english columnists in their own columns (many times unattributed) -- u too seem to be generalizing -- a lot of the upper class is not as secular as you think just as a lot of the middle class is not as non-secular as you make it out to be -- veeresh sahib -- for your info -- even christians in pakistan wear still karas -- we have a household worker from multan who wears one too -- it doesn`t necessarily mean that he is a sikh convert -- and its not a question of me doubting your sources veeresh, more that you should be so adamant sitting in delhi -- i don`t think i will ask my``publication bosses`` on this account -- thanks for the offer but the stay will be brief and busy, to attend a conference -- i dont know why older people tend to get so touchy when they are challenged --

AlephNull 125 - yes, thanks for the link to these two books, Butalias book was reviewed extensively in India . . .but the real details will lie with the Gurudwaras and Mosque and Temple committees. Sometimes I feel that Partition was simply, across all levels of soceity and wealth, one huge big coordinated land-property-gold-fair sex grab and motivated bank failure.

Romair 126 - sure I agree my first hand experience of Real Pakistan is quite limited, but at least I try to tell it like I see it?

One William Baker comes to Jammu & Kashmir from Israel. Another eighty thousand or so Israeli tourists also come to India (mainly the Goa to Jammu, Kashmir, Leh circuit). One William Baker writes a book sponsored by Pakistani lobbyists about Kashmir. Eighty thousand Israeli tourists seem to go back and send more tourists across. What is reality?

Now on to realities of Pakistan`s kashmir. A few hundred metres from the ``Kashmir Chowk`` turnoff in Islamabad is the first ceckpost, where uniformed men with guns as well as a video camera record the departure and arrival of people. Fair enough. Next they ask them who they are and where they are headed. Fair enough.

But after another few kilometres there is another military checkpost. Here, very sorry, if you do not have a family reason to proceed further, you are sent back. Whether you are headed for anywhere on the forthcoming M-1 or elsewhere, towards Peshawar or Murree of POK/Azad Kashmir.

Give us all a break, Romair. We all know Margaret Thatcher could not see poor homeless people on the streets of I`Bad and Lahore. The answer to this mystery was given to me by one of your compatriots - the Pakistani authorities simply keep the rural poor heading for urban centres on the street on the move till they get tired/broke and go right back to their subsistence level existences. This is also called ``China Model``, right?

So who are you kidding when you say that Pakistan`s Kashmir is open to everybody?

Attn: Romair
Since, you have cultivated an amazing knack of ignoring things here (which obviously dont fit in your lame narrative, e.g. AlephNull`s posts on Baker), try not to ignore this post if you may.

There is a BBC correspondent Altaf Hussain In Srinagar who freqeuntly contributes for BBC online edition.
One of his report is linked below:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/3520920.stm

A simple search will take you to many of his other articles too. Try BBC search engine with keywords: Kashmir Altaf Hussain.

peace.