Hamid Mir حامد میر

In 2016, Senior journalist Hamid Mir dedicated his international award in The Hague to #Pakistan martyred journalists. A decade later, Pakistani journalists are still fighting censorship, state oppression and fake cases. Today, they observe Black Day to protest these injustices.

حامد میر پر حملہ محض ایک صحافی پر تشدد کا واقعہ نہیں تھا، بلکہ یہ پاکستان میں آزادیِ صحافت، اظہارِ رائے اور شہریوں کے بنیادی حقوق پر ایک سنگین سوالیہ نشان تھا۔ 19 اپریل 2014 کو کراچی میں حامد میر پر ہونے والے قاتلانہ حملے نے پورے ملک کو ہلا کر رکھ دیا۔ اس واقعے کے بعد انکوائری کے اعلانات ہوئے، تحقیقات کی باتیں کی گئیں اور قوم کو یقین دلایا گیا کہ حقائق سامنے لائے جائیں گے۔ مگر آج بھی اس معاملے میں شفافیت اور جواب دہی کا سوال اپنی جگہ موجود ہے۔ اگر ایک صحافی پر دن دہاڑے حملہ ہو اور اس واقعے کی تحقیقات مکمل ہونے کے باوجود رپورٹ عوام کے سامنے نہ آئے، تو یہ صرف ایک فرد کے ساتھ ناانصافی نہیں بلکہ پورے معاشرے کے ساتھ زیادتی ہے۔ ایک جمہوری ریاست میں عوام کو یہ جاننے کا حق حاصل ہے کہ ان کے ملک میں صحافیوں کو کون دھمکاتا ہے، کون ان کی آواز دبانے کی کوشش کرتا ہے اور ایسے واقعات میں ذمہ داروں کا تعین کیوں نہیں ہو پاتا۔ حامد میر کا معاملہ اس حقیقت کی یاد دہانی ہے کہ پاکستان میں صحافت محض خبر دینے کا نام نہیں، بلکہ بعض اوقات سچ بولنے کی قیمت جان خطرے میں ڈال کر ادا کرنا پڑتی ہے۔ جب کسی صحافی پر حملے کی تحقیقات کا نتیجہ سامنے نہیں آتا تو معاشرے میں یہ تاثر مضبوط ہوتا ہے کہ طاقتور حلقے قانون اور احتساب سے بالاتر ہیں۔ یہاں سوال کسی ایک سیاسی جماعت، ادارے یا شخصیت کا دفاع کرنے کا نہیں، بلکہ اصول کی بات ہے۔ اگر تحقیقات ہوئی ہیں تو ان کے نتائج سامنے آنے چاہئیں۔ اگر رپورٹ میں حساس معلومات موجود ہیں تو ان کی وضاحت کرتے ہوئے عوام کو کم از کم بنیادی حقائق سے آگاہ کیا جانا چاہیے۔ اور اگر تحقیقات میں کوئی کوتاہی ہوئی ہے تو اس کی ذمہ داری بھی متعین ہونی چاہیے۔ حامد میر پر حملے کی انکوائری کا معاملہ ہمیں یہ سوچنے پر مجبور کرتا ہے کہ کیا پاکستان میں سچ بولنے والے صحافیوں کے تحفظ کی کوئی ضمانت ہے؟ کیا کسی صحافی پر حملے کے بعد ریاست کی ذمہ داری صرف بیانات اور وعدوں تک محدود رہ جاتی ہے؟ ایک ایسے معاشرے میں جہاں سوال پوچھنے والوں کو خاموش کرانے کی کوشش کی جائے، وہاں خاموشی سب سے بڑا جرم بن جاتی ہے۔ حامد میر پر حملے کی رپورٹ کا سامنے آنا صرف ماضی کے ایک واقعے کی وضاحت نہیں، بلکہ مستقبل میں صحافیوں کے تحفظ اور آزادیِ اظہار کی ضمانت کے لیے بھی ضروری ہے۔ حامد میر پر حملے کی تحقیقات اور رپورٹ کے حوالے سے قوم آج بھی جواب چاہتی ہے۔ کیونکہ انصاف میں تاخیر صرف انصاف کو کمزور نہیں کرتی، بلکہ ریاست اور عوام کے درمیان اعتماد کو بھی مجروح کرتی ہے۔ #حامد_میر #آزادی_صحافت #صحافیوں_کا_تحفظ #انصاف #اظہار_رائے_کی_آزادی #EndEmpunity @HamidMirPAK

Nice gesture by Pakistan ! Welcome dear visitors to past memories … have a good time. Well done Pakistan for not competing with Mr Modi’s government in refusing visas to all citizens living nextdoor !

Across the world, journalists continue to pay an outrageous price for telling the truth. When journalists are targeted & their reporting is extinguished, it makes victims of us all. On this International Day to End Impunity for Crimes against Journalists, we demand justice.

Under pressure from Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the Trump administration may be within days of launching a nuclear strike on Iran. The target would be Pickax Mountain in central Iran, where Israeli intelligence claims the Iranian government has restarted its nuclear enrichment program. No conventional weapon in the American arsenal can penetrate 300 feet of solid granite to destroy the tunnels where enrichment is supposedly taking place. The only military option is a nuclear strike. Netanyahu has been pushing hard for one. “Bibi calls Trump about it every day,” says an informed observer. Netanyahu is cornered and desperate. After last week’s election results, he can’t form a government unless Trump intervenes directly in Israeli politics and brokers a deal with other parties that gives Netanyahu 61 seats in the Knesset. Otherwise, he is out as prime minister and on his way to ignominy, investigations and possibly jail. Netanyahu must stay close to Trump. He needs this war. To that end, he’s applied maximum pressure to his closest allies in the administration, including Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and CENTCOM commander Brad Cooper. Both oppose a negotiated settlement to the war they’ve so grievously mismanaged; both are pushing to restart major combat operations. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and CIA director John Ratcliffe are also following Netanyahu’s lead, as are leaders of the Democratic Party. In a recent meeting on the subject, former president Barack Obama said he opposes the current Iran peace deal being drafted in Doha. The rest of America’s longtime allies in the Middle East are terrified by the prospect of more war. On September 27th, Netanyahu flew secretly to Abu Dhabi to enlist the UAE in his lobbying effort for a final attack on Iran. The Emiratis refused. After eight months of conflict, Gulf economies are teetering. So are global energy and fertilizer markets. They won’t recover soon. Globally, there are a total of about 850 supertankers used to transport oil from producers to the rest of the world. In October alone, 11 of them were badly damaged in Hormuz. At this pace, a global depression is imminent. A nuclear strike would radically accelerate the destruction. Fallout from a ground explosion at Pickax Mountain would contaminate the Persian Gulf, poisoning the water supply for 100 million people. And those are just some of the immediate consequences for the region. The rest of the world is every bit as exposed. No country other than the United States has ever used a nuclear weapon in war. Some would like to. An American nuclear attack on Iran would set a new precedent. The Russians have already told at least two other governments that an American nuclear strike on Iran would free them to use nuclear weapons against Ukraine. Pakistan and India would be tempted to do the same against each other, as would North Korea against Seoul. After the first nuclear strike, World War Three is inevitable. That war would be short and final. We’ve been sleepwalking toward this moment for months. Since February, the administration has quietly rewritten America’s nuclear doctrine to make first use of so-called “battlefield nukes” easier and therefore more likely. No one in Washington in either party seems bothered by this. Now we’re on the brink of it. Close observers say Trump is likely to decide by next weekend whether or not to use nuclear weapons. That would be November 7, six days from now. To his credit, he’s hesitating. At the moment, Trump is listening to his vice president, JD Vance, and to his envoy and friend Steve Witkoff, both of whom argue a deal with Iran can be made. They’re right, though it won’t be simple. The Iranians are famously frustrating to negotiate with under any circumstances, and elements of that government have become more radical since Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and his family were killed in February. After decades of isolation, even relatively moderate Iranian leaders seem confused by how decisions are made in the West. (There is a widespread belief in Tehran, for example, that the United States government controls Israel.) But overall, people who have spoken to decision-makers in Iran say there is consensus there that more war is bad for everyone and a deal is worth making. One group that hasn’t been consulted so far is the global population — the hundreds of millions of people who will be killed along with their children if Trump is pushed by Netanyahu into launching a nuclear strike next week. Now would be the time for them to speak up.

For the record, after senior Geo News journalist @HamidMirPAK was attacked and shot six times in Karachi in April 2014, a massive campaign was launched against him, Jang and Geo Group, and its editor-in-chief, Mir Shakil-ur-Rahman. They were accused of being agents of foreign intelligence agencies, including MI5, MI6, RAW, Mossad and the CIA. A private Pakistani television channel broadcast around 300 programmes including in the UK attacking the media group, its owner and journalists, making serious allegations about their loyalty to Pakistan and alleged links with foreign agencies. Mir Shakil-ur-Rahman took the broadcaster to the High Court in London in a landmark defamation case. In December 2016, the High Court delivered a major victory for Mir Shakil-ur-Rahman, ruling that the channel had seriously defamed him. The court awarded him damages and legal costs of around £2 million. The judgment rejected the defamatory allegations and vindicated Mir Shakil-ur-Rahman’s reputation as well integrity of journalists like Mir. The private television channel was subsequently forced to broadcast an apology and its UK operations later closed following separate regulatory action. The Guardian: theguardian.com/world/2016/d…… Dawn: dawn.com/news/1304165 The News: thenews.com.pk/print/183737-…… Geo: geo.tv/latest/129744-…