Tag: assault

Journalists are increasingly located in line of fire in conventional as well as simulated warfare where they are, for a fact, merely professional inquisitors and documentarists. By the nature of their vocation, they must relate with all actors across the lines of hostility so as to get a comprehensive view of contending issues at play and relay perspectives from all sides to their audiences. This operational rule ordinarily gives them a crosscutting reach that could be disconcerting to actors entrenched in the hostility of warfare at any particular instance. But then, it could be a vital resource for conflict resolution and truce mediation if properly tapped into by the contending parties.

The threat to pen pushers – and effectively the freedom of information and expression – is not peculiar to any political civilisation or geographical boundary, though it is of more primitive shades in some climes than others. Under the regime of military strongman-turned civilian president Abdel Fattah el-Sisi of Egypt, for instance, journalists have had death sentences willy-nilly slammed on them. Only last June, Egypt’s superior court confirmed the death sentence imposed by a lower court on six persons, three of who were journalists accused of leaking state secrets to Qatar. Ibrahim Helal, former director of news at Al Jazeera’s Arabic channel; Alaa Sablan, an Al Jazeera employee until last year; and Asmaa Alkhatib, a journalist with the Rassd News Network, were all arraigned in Cairo and sentenced to death in absentia.

Then, there are places like Turkey where journalists are being hauled into detention on scant suspicion of having links with perceived enemies of the state. Following the July 15 failed coup in that country, no fewer than 43 journalists were detained as a part of investigations against followers of exiled Islamist cleric Fethullah Gulen, who was accused by the Tayyip Erdogan government of having masterminded the coup. Besides the detentions, Turkish authorities imposed travel bans on media personnel, while some 200 journalists have been barred from entering the Turkish parliament to do their job.

A less primitive, but no less affronting hazard is the hostile disposition of Republican torchbearer for the 2016 presidential election in the United States, Donald Trump, towards mainstream American media. Faced with a deserved meltdown of his run for the White House, and badly trailing Democratic contender Hillary Clinton in recent opinion polls, Trump has made a pastime of savaging the media. Only last week, he tweeted: “If the disgusting and corrupt media covered me honestly and didn’t put false meaning into the words I say, I would be beating Hillary by 20%.” And that tweet was by no means out of Trump’s character. Journalists have never rated too highly in his estimation, such that at a campaign event in Pennsylvania penultimate week, he described them as the lowest form of life. “These people are the lowest form of life, I’m telling you,” he said, pointing at journalists covering his rally. “They are the lowest form of humanity.”

Trump’s contention is that the media were biased and have been soft on the flaws of his Democratic opponent while being dogged in highlighting his own missteps, and so could effectively “rig the election for Hillary.” But truth be told, the media is not to blame for his campaign’s unraveling: it is Trump, not the media, who has been committing avoidable seppuku with unguarded utterances and unwise picks of political fights that have alienated vast segments of American voters. Actually, his fight with reporters is another chronically unwise pick. Asked at a press conference in June if that was how he would relate with the press as president should he get to the Oval Office, he said: “Yeah, it is going to be like this. You think I’m gonna change? I’m not gonna change.” Well, so much prospects he has for media support seeing him to that office! But we digress.

Nigerian journalists and associated practitioners have always had their fair share of vocational hazards; but there was lately a tendency towards undue high-handedness by the government. Penultimate weekend, military authorities declared three persons wanted on the heels of Boko Haram’s release of its latest video on the abducted Chibok girls. The persons declared wanted were Aisha Wakil, a lawyer, as well as Ahmed Bokori and Ahmad Salkida who are journalists. There is no confusion, of course, that the enemy is Boko Haram; only that the trio were incidental targets because they failed, according to the military, to provide useful information to authorities despite having ease of access to the terror group. It is apparent though that the declaration was overhanded, because from indications, the persons declared wanted were available for prior invitation by military authorities, but no such invitation was ever extended. And they all said the military knew where to reach them.

Why military authorities chose to scandalise the trio by declaring them wanted rather than take the more decent course of inviting them for questioning remains a guesswork. But matters got even more curious with the responses to that declaration. Salkida, who is based in Dubai, issued a statement saying he would be heading to Abuja shortly to hand himself in, and even suggested that the process could be hastened if the military obliges him a return ticket. There are no indications that the military warmed up to his challenge. Bokori promptly turned himself in to the military in Maiduguri and by public accounts, which the military did not counter, it was as though he was never even on the security radar, much less being expected to report. After groping around for some while, he was advised by low-level officials to go off and return the following day for another try at surrender. Aisha Wakil equally turned herself in at the Defence Headquarters in Abuja and was almost treated like an intruder. According to her accounts, which the military also hasn’t refuted, some front desk officers initially told her they knew nothing of her being wanted and were already turning her away when a supervisor stumbled upon them; and she was then held in furlough for some time as the authorities apparently worked out what to do with her.

Now, if the motivation and rationale for security agencies in declaring persons wanted have not changed from what the public has always construed them to be, it is quite strange that Wakil and Bokori got such chilly reception from military authorities when they turned themselves in. But more questionable, I would say, is the ground on which they are indicted with having run foul of the law. If the offense is none other than that they have not been forthcoming with the identity and other details about their sources in the Boko Haram camp, they are well within a sacred creed of global best practice in journalism, namely strict confidentiality of sources. It is uncompromising protection of confidentiality that keeps those sources available and makes them accessible to that enemy fold, just as they are able to relate on the other side with Nigerian authorizes. Actually, the trio’s continuing access to Boko Harm should be an asset asset for the military in tackling the terrorist challenge: the link could be explored for genuine negotiation to free the Chibok girls, or it would at least afford some inkling into what is going on in the terrorist camp as would inform warfare strategy.

But then, the trio as well have an onerous responsibility not just for conflict sensitive reporting or relaying of messages from the Boko Haram camp, but also for active mediation of a lasting truce with the terrorists. History will not be kind to them if they fail to use their peculiar advantage for the nation’s benefit.