Sunday, January 13, 2008

Pakistan expels writer for New York Times

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) -- Pakistan has expelled an American journalist who wrote in The New York Times Magazine about the rise of pro-Taliban militants in this key U.S. ally, a media rights group said Saturday.

A Pakistani official denied that Nicholas Schmidle had been deported, however, and said the American lacked a journalist visa. Schmidle, a visiting scholar at Pakistan's state-run Institute of Strategic Studies in the capital, Islamabad, occasionally wrote media articles.

A statement issued by the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists said the Interior Ministry issued a deportation order to Schmidle on Tuesday -- less than a week after his report ''Next-Gen Taliban'' appeared in The New York Times Magazine.

''CPJ is unfortunately accustomed to reporting on the government's attacks on the local media, but now harassment seems to be spreading to foreign journalists as well,'' said Joel Simon, the CPJs executive director.

Schmidle's article, published on Jan. 6, was based on interviews with some of the officials, clerics and fugitive militant leaders who were on the run or fighting security forces in the valley of Swat and in tribal areas along the Afghan border.

To write it, he ''secretly traveled'' to militant strongholds, prompting authorities to expel him, a security official said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to media.

An official at the press information department said Schmidle was not in the country on a journalist visa.

The official, who also declined to be named because he was not authorized to speak to media, said the information ministry served a deportation order on Schmidle because he had traveled to ''sensitive areas'' -- but then withdrew it. He did not say why. Schmidle then left Pakistan on his own accord, he said.

Journalists must seek permission from the Interior Ministry before traveling to volatile northwest Pakistan, where al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden and his top deputy Ayman al-Zawahri are thought to be hiding, and where Taliban militants plan attacks on coalition forces in Afghanistan.

Speaking from London on Friday, Schmidle told the CPJ that he was ''extremely disappointed at being asked to leave Pakistan,'' and that his visa contained ''no restrictions whatsoever,'' the statement said.

The magazine's editor, Scott Malcomson, told the CJP that authorities did not explain to Schmidle why he was being deported, but he said the move was clearly connected to his writing.

President Pervez Musharraf has reportedly warned that U.S. troops were not welcome to join the fight against al-Qaida on Pakistani soil, despite the growing threat from Islamic extremists.

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