Mustafa Qadri

Journalism is a dangerous profession in Pakistan. But a vibrant, relatively free press still exists in this volatile country

For as long as anyone cares to remember, journalism has been a dangerous profession in Pakistan. Although of late much of the attention has focused on the risks to foreign journalists, the situation for local reporters is equally, if not more, parlous.

First consider that virtually all the on-the-ground news you read from Pakistan, especially from conflict zones, has been gathered by a local reporter under considerable personal risk. That is certainly the case for journalists working in the northwest frontier where the Taliban are most active. “I [do some] work for Voice of America,” one veteran reporter, who requested anonymity, told me in the safety of a hotel room in Islamabad. “Even now, I do not tell [the Taliban he interviews] that. It would mean certain death.”

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Mustafa Qadri

Last Updated: Mon, 24 Aug 2009 12:24:00 +1000

People in a Pakistani frontier region threatened by the Taliban are trying to preserve a culture rich in poetry and dance from religious extremism.

The culture of the ethnic Pashtun peoples often delights in worldly pleasures – like sex and alcohol – considered un-Islamic by religious conservatives.

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Much of Afghanistan’s Pashtun-dominated south and east has been tense during for the recent presidential elections, but just over the border in Pakistan, outside Peshawar, the battle rages for cultural control of the community. The Taliban are trying to outlaw traditional poetry and dance, which they consider un-Islamic.

Presenter:Mustafa Qadri
Speaker: Fazal Maula, Peshawar-based non-government organisation

QADRI: Following my travels through northwestern Pakistan where millions fled the war against the Taliban, I met members of an anti-Taliban lashkar or army in the tribal district of Badaber. To describe Badaber as an outpost would be something of an understatement. Both the Taliban and government security forces have wrestled for control of this vitally strategic tribal region. Fazal Maula from a local non-government organisation explains.

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Until two or three years ago, Pakistan seemed to be a literary desert in both Urdu and English. Now, quite suddenly, it has produced a cluster of remarkable bright young novelists able to match anything coming out India: in fiction, Nadeem Aslam, Mohsin Hamid, Mohammed Hanif and Kamila Shamsie; and in non-fiction, Ahmed Rashid and [...]

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