http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/10/pakistan-cyril-almeida-dawn-exit-control-list-161010204921917.html
Pakistan: Cyril Almeida of Dawn 'on Exit Control List' Cyril Almeida "informed" he is on Exit Control List, just days after scoop hinting at civilian-military leadership rift. Dawn says it 'verified, cross-checked and fact-checked' Almeida's report [Youtube] A prominent journalist has been put on Pakistan's Exit Control List after the respected Dawn newspaper published his scoop that appeared to confirm long suspected rumours of a rift between the country's civilian and military leaderships. The Exit Control List is a system of border control maintained by the Pakistan government under an ordinance which allows it to bar people whose names appear on the list from leaving the country. Cyril Almeida, Dawn's assistant editor, pointed via Twitter on Monday to his name's appearance on the list. The Pakistani authorities have yet to comment on the development. cyril almeida @cyalm I am told and have been informed and have been shown evidence that I am on the Exit Control List. 12:47 AM - 11 Oct 2016 In the October 6 exclusive news report, Almeida said some in the civilian government complained at a top-secret meeting that they were being asked to do more to crack down on armed groups, yet whenever law-enforcement agencies took action "the security establishment ... worked behind the scenes to set the arrested free". Insisting that the law should apply equally to all, the civilian government's representatives at the meeting gave warning that Pakistan risked international isolation if the security establishment did not take the recommended course of action, according to the Dawn report. Almeida's story came against a backdrop of heightened tension in the region following a claim by the Indian government of a cross-border "surgical strike" by army commandos on September 18, apparently in response to a deadly assault on an army post in Indian-administered Kashmir. India blames Pakistan-based armed groups for the attack, a charge rejected by the Pakistani government led by Nawaz Sharif, the prime minister. The report said that the arguments made by the foreign secretary and the Punjab chief minister during the meeting in the prime minister's offices were designed to trigger a debate with the military leadership. A spokesman for the Pakistani Prime Minister's Office later disputed Almeida's account, labelling it "not only speculative but misleading and factually incorrect" and describing it as an "amalgamation of fiction and fabrication". A statement from the Prime Minister's Office said that participants at a meeting of the top civilian and military leadership on Monday expressed concern over the publication of what it termed as a "fabricated news story" pertaining to security issues purportedly discussed in a meeting of the National Security Committee. Abbas Nasir @abbasnasir59 Had @cyalm shredded the Constitution; acquired properties abroad via offshore companies, dodgy wealth he'd be free to travel abroad. 1:49 AM - 11 Oct 2016 The statement said: "The participants were unanimous that the published story was clearly violative of universally acknowledged principles of reporting on national security issues and has risked the vital state interests through inclusion of inaccurate and misleading contents which had no relevance to actual discussion and facts." The statement further said the "prime minister took serious notice of the violation and directed that those responsible should be identified for stern action". Late on Monday Zaffar Abbas, Dawn's editor-in-chief, published an editorial note confirming that Almeida had been placed on the Exit Control List. India-Pakistan: Media on fire - The Listening Post Abbas stood by Almeida's report, saying that it was "verified, cross-checked and fact-checked". "Dawn would like to clarify and state on the record several things," the editorial note said. "First, this newspaper considers it a sacred oath to its readers to pursue its reporting fairly, independently and, above all, accurately. The story that has been rejected by Prime Minister’s Office as a fabrication was verified, cross-checked and fact-checked. "Second, many at the helm of affairs are aware of the senior officials, and participants of the meeting, who were contacted by the newspaper for collecting information, and more than one source confirmed and verified the details." The government's decision quickly drew strong reactions from senior journalists and rights activists on social media. Follow shahzeb khanzada ✔@shazbkhanzdaGEO So banned outfits can roam around freely,do rallies but a journalist has been put on ECL fr a story.really Prime minister??#StandWithCyril 1:43 AM - 11 Oct 2016 Hundreds of people, including dozens of Pakistani journalists, have declared that they are supporting Almeida and press freedom by tweeting under the hashtag, #StandWithCyril. The action against Almeida is being seen by many public intellectuals as the latest in a long line of steps by which clear parameters have been set for the country's news media. Follow Syed Talat Hussain ✔@TalatHussain12 I hv my take on Cyril story but to put hs name on ECL is ridiculous,unacceptable. Also if there is an issue catch the leaker not the writer. 12:43 AM - 11 Oct 2016 Amnesty International denounced the move on Tuesday. "The travel ban on Cyril Almeida is a crude intimidation tactic designed to silence journalists and stop them from doing their jobs," said the rights group's Audrey Gaughran in a statement. "Journalism is not a crime. They should be able to work freely and without fear. The Pakistani authorities must break with a longstanding practice of subjecting media workers to intimidation, threats, restrictions on movements, enforced disappearances and violence." Earlier this year, Reporters without Borders ranked Pakistan 147th out of 180 countries for press freedom, the lowest position in South Asia. Pakistan's English-language newspapers are viewed as one of the last enclaves of relative media freedom, hence the move against Almeida has fuelled fears on social media of the establishment's assertion of complete control over the press. Recently Pakistan also passed the controversial Cyber Crime Act which grants sweeping powers to regulators to block private information they deem illegal. Follow Adil Najam ✔@AdilNajam Reason#1 why @cyalm and his story is #GOOD for#Pakistan's image: It proves that independent journalism is alive and thrives in #Pakistan 2:35 AM - 11 Oct 2016 Government officials say internet restrictions under the new law are needed to ensure security against growing threats, such as "terrorism". But the law has alarmed human-rights and pro-democracy activists, who fear that its vague language could lead to the curtailment of free speech and unfair prosecutions. Source: Al Jazeera News * * * http://www.hindustantimes.com/analysis/india-has-no-reason-to-gloat-about-travel-ban-on-pak-journo-cyril-almeida/story-9KypvlyHSZTIU3pqFirOEO.html India has no reason to gloat about travel ban on Pak journo Cyril Almeida Sushil Aaron, Hindustan Times Updated: Oct 11, 2016 13:55 IST Cyril Almeida, a reporter with the Pakistan’s Dawn newspaper, was barred from travelling out of the country after he reported on differences between the civilian government and the powerful military on tackling terrorists. (Photo credit: Cyril Almeida’s Twitter) ________________________________ Those denouncing Islamabad’s travel ban on Dawn’s Cyril Almeida must also take a candid look at the tolerance for dissent in India. Cyril Almeida, a well-known and highly-rated columnist for the Dawn newspaper, has been placed on an ‘exit control list’ by the Pakistani authorities and prevented from leaving the country. This follows his sensational story on a “extraordinary verbal confrontation” between Punjab chief minister Shahbaz Sharif and the director general of the ISI, Rizwan Akhtar, during a recent meeting where the civilian government apparently told the military that Pakistan risks being isolated unless it takes certain actions on terrorism. The story sparked a furore in Pakistan; Almeida was viciously trolled on social media, the story embarrassed both the army and the military and the Nawaz Sharif government issued three statements denouncing the story , once calling it an “amalgamation of fiction and fabrication”. The Dawn has reacted sharply to Almeida’s travel ban. It reiterated that senior officials and participants at the meeting confirmed and verified the details and said that the government “should refrain from targeting the messenger, and scape-goating the country’s most respected newspaper in a malicious campaign”. This story is bound to generate a lot of interest in India. It will confirm to many their impressions that Pakistan is a nasty place. There is indeed an irony in the Pakistani State allowing LeT’s Hafiz Saeed to roam freely and it lobbying China to prevent Jaish-e-Mohammed’s Masood Azhar from being on UN list of terrorists while preventing a journalist from heading abroad just because he highlighted the rifts within the establishment. Since Pakistan gets an exaggerated amount of mind space in India, many on social media will no doubt be telling Indian liberals that they ought to be treated similarly for arguing with the Modi government or they will likely gloat that India is so much better than Pakistan when it comes to press freedom. On both counts they need to think again – as India is not the exemplar of press freedom and individual liberty as many would like to believe. Take the case of the travel ban for Almeida for example. The idea evidently, from the Pakistani establishment point of view, is to prevent potential interactions with media peers and diplomats abroad who would be interested in civil-military dynamics in Pakistan, which is of great interest to those in Western and Asian capitals. But fear of uncomfortable stories getting out is also a big concern for India. Priya Pillai, then working for Greenpeace, was offloaded from Delhi airport in January 2015 just as she was heading to the UK to brief its parliamentarians on mining and human rights violations in Madhya Pradesh, an act the ministry of home affairs felt was tantamount to projecting India negatively abroad. More recently, police raided media houses and shut down newspapers in Kashmir for three days in July “to ensure peace”, in the words of the government spokesman. The daily Kashmir Reader was banned, on Gandhi Jayanti, for “publishing content that can incite acts of violence” and “disturb public tranquillity”, even though the state government is yet to explain what content it is referring to. India is ranked 133rd out of 180 countries in the 2016 World Press Freedom Index published by Reporters Without Borders (RSF). The RSF conceded that India’s media is “dynamic and much more capable of playing the role of democracy’s watchdog than the media in most other countries” but says the situation is worsening. It says that “frequent lawsuits against journalists by local officials and draconian legislation on defamation and online publications impose major constraints on the media and encourage self-censorship”. It also reports that “violence has emerged as the main brake on media activity in recent years, especially for reporters in the field and investigative journalists. Wherever they work, Indian journalists are exposed to growing violence. As well as frequent verbal and physical violence, attacks by armed groups are on the rise in several states and the local authorities have had little success in reining it in.” As the RSF states there are threats to press freedom from State and non-State actors in India. The latter is having an especially deleterious effect on India’s democracy. This trend has been initiated by those at the top. Ministers and political leaders not only refuse to subject themselves to rigorous media scrutiny but some choose to attack journalists using derogatory terms. Hordes of party faithfuls take cues from political leaders and relentlessly troll journalists who challenge the government’s policies and narratives. All this is evidently done with a view to create a chilling, self-limiting climate. Journalists have been recently targeted for questioning the government’s version of the surgical strikes against Pakistan and those questions have been projected as an attack on the army itself. Overall, this is not a climate that nurtures the scrutiny of the establishment which is what the media is supposed to do in a democracy. Those denouncing Islamabad’s action against Cyril Almeida must take a candid look at the tolerance for dissent in India. We smugly proclaim that Pakistan is not a benchmark for India in anything. But in the books we don’t tolerate, the films we censor or ban, the meat we are forbidden from eating, the clothes we aren’t allowed to wear, and the other we are not allowed to embrace, India is increasingly and in effect aspiring to be Pakistan. It is not enough to declare that the Indian media is freer than Pakistan or that India’s democracy is bigger. The point is to check if democratic institutions are getting better. They are not at this point. The views expressed are personal. Twitter: @SushilAaron * * * http://www.news18.com/news/india/grounded-pakistani-journalist-cyril-almeida-has-goan-roots-1300632.html Grounded Pakistani Journalist Cyril Almeida Has Goan Roots D P Satish | dp_satish First published: October 11, 2016, 2:04 PM IST | Updated: 13 hours ago Dawn journalist Cyril Almedia (TV Grab CnnNews18) New Delhi: “I don’t see a very bright future for Pakistani journalism” When he uttered these words a year ago during a visit to Goa, Cyril Almeida may have had no idea that the future he was talking about would come true in less than a year. Almeida, an assistant editor with Pakistan’s most-reputed English daily Dawn, has been barred by Islamabad from leaving the country. His fault: breaking a story on an “undisclosed” meeting last week between the country’s civil and military leadership where the government reportedly read out the riot act to the country’s army and its spy agency ISI. “Puzzled, saddened. Had no intention of going anywhere; this is my home Pakistan,” Almeida tweeted early Tuesday morning as he got the information he has been put on the country’s ‘Exit Control List’. Pakistani media fraternity and human rights activists are hopeful that he will not be penalised for carrying out his job, and his newspaper – founded by Pakistan’s founder Mohammed Ali Jinnah in 1948 – has thrown its weight behind Almeida. Not many people on this side of the border know that Almeida belongs to the micro-minority of Goan Catholics living in Karachi. His ancestors migrated to the port city almost a hundred years ago and made it their home. He first visited Goa only in 2012 to participate in Goa Arts and Literary Festival (GALF), and then followed it up with two more visits, the last one in December 2015. His friends say the Almeda family still speaks Konkani at home. In an interview he had said “The accent, expressions and pronunciations of the Goan vernacular sound very familiar to my ear. Two generations ago, people would either speak Konkani or be familiar with it, but, now we largely speak Pakistani English”. A fan of Goan cuisine, he took home the Goan Rechado Masala on each of his visits, remembers a friend, requesting anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the discourse enveloping Almeida, India and Pakistan. The older Karachi Goans still visit home for St. Francis Xavier’s festival. But Almeida’s generation has moved on. Many of them have left for Europe and America looking for safety and better opportunities. Almeida could not be reached for his comments, with his phone unreachable since his story was published last week. According to historical documents, under the Portuguese rule Goan Catholics started migrating to Karachi more than 150 years ago. After partition, a few of them held high posts in Pakistan Army, police, railways, courts and the hospitality industry. An old report in the Dawn hails the Goan community for bringing “a unique touch of exuberance and vivacity” to Karachi of the 1960s. It was the same Goans of Karachi who gave India and Pakistan their first Cardinals – Cardinal Valerian Gracias and Cardinal Joseph Cordeiro. Also a number of bishops and archbishops, including in Delhi, Allahabad, Pune, Nagpur, Kolkata, Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad. Among the most famous Goan Pakistanis is Charles Lobo who was a judge of the Sind High Court and the chairman of the Public Service Commission of Pakistan. He was also Pakistan’s delegate to the United Nations. Hermond Raymond was chief prosecutor and a high court judge of Sind and Baluchistan. Pakistan’s first military dictator Ayub Khan made him the chairman of a Special Judicial Committee to investigate political corruption. His brother Maurice Raymond was the first general manager of Karachi Port Trust. Joseph D’Mello was the chairman of Pakistan Railway Board. A celebrated Goan Catholic Sydney Pereira was the chairman of Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission. It wasn’t only in officialdom that Pakistan’s tiny Goan community made its mark. It produced a fair amount of sportsmen. Mennen Soares was the only Goan to represent the country in badminton. Phoebe Dias Barboza was the number one Women badminton player of Pakistan. Bertie Gomes excelled in heavyweight boxing, while in cricket, Mathais Wallis and Antao D'Souza played test cricket for Pakistan. He was described as the “safest pair of hands” by none other than the great Sir Garfield Sobers and considered to be the best slip fielder Pakistan ever produced. He also served as a national cricket selector and was the captain of the National Bank of Pakistan team. The police and ministry had its share of Goans in its highest echelons. Among the distinguished officers included Blasé Mascarenhas, who was decorated with a 'Tamgha-e-Khidmat' by President Ayub Khan. Blasé retired as the deputy director of the Intelligence Bureau and settled abroad. Another prominent name is Patrick J Rodrigues, who was a senior Intelligence Officer of high repute in early 1960s. Goan men who served the Pakistan armed forces included Brigadier Mervyn Cardoza, who was also decorated with the Tamgha-e-Khidmat in one of the Indo-Pak wars. Other reputed Pakistani army officers from the community include his brother, Colonel Eric Cardoza, Lt. Col. David DeSouza, Major Joseph Lobo, Major Kenneth Cardoza, and Brigadier Dr Hilary Zuzarte of the Medical Corps (seconded to the Pakistan Air Force as an Air Commodore) and Brigadier FG Pinto, Director Pakistan Signals. At the centre of Goan Catholic community in Karachi was the 125-year-old Karachi Goan Association or KGA, one of the oldest clubs in the Indian sub-continent. In 1886, Goans started the Goan Portugese Association, which was later renamed as Karachi Goan Association. At its peak, it held 10 days of celebrations where top Goan bands performed. During World War II, the Karachi Goan Association was turned into Senior Officers Club for the US Army. Even though there is no official data, the Goan Association says they still have 12,000-15,000 Goan Konkani Catholics living in Pakistan, most of them settled in older parts of Karachi. The KGA is one of the only two clubs allowed to serve and sell alcohol in all of Karachi. A lot of Goans may have left, but they have taken a small piece of Karachi with them, says KGA website. Brian Gonsalves, a Goan from Karachi, who now lives on the Island of Margarita in Venezuela, wrote to Goans of Pakistan: “My House in Venezuela is called ‘Pakistan’ – how is that for patriotism!!”