Reporter gagged
Pakistan
A Pakistani journalist, Sarwar Mujahid, has been detained for three months following his coverage of a land dispute between paramilitary forces and military farm tenants in Punjab province's Okara district.
The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (hrcp) has expressed deep concern over the July 31 arrest of Mujahid, a correspondent for the Urdu daily Nawa-I-Waqt, "to prevent him from reporting on the growing violence faced by tenants of the military farms'. Mujahid had also been detained in 2003 for over a month, for his reports on the situation in military farms, reports www.irinnews.org.
The Pakistan army controls the Okhra farms, but tenant farmers have been demanding ownership for decades. Pakistani forces on July 21 killed four persons and detained hundreds when tenant farmers agitated for greater rights over the fertile land.