Foreign Correspondents
The official Press and Information Departments under the Ministry of Informationhandle accreditation procedures for foreign correspondents. Special visas are required if long stays are intended. Pakistan rarely grants visas to Indian journalists or journalists of Indian origin.
The presence of foreign journalists in Pakistan has intensified with the United States' search for Osama bin Laden after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Pakistan's proximity to Afghanistan provides the media with a base from which to operate as they report the news to the world. The killing of American journalist Daniel Pearl by extremists in Pakistan brought much unwanted attention to Musharraf's government, and the United States has urged Pakistan's government to place a ban on the publications of as many as 22 magazines that serve as propaganda machines of the different religious and Jihadi organizations, which appear from Karachi, Lahore and Muzaffarabad. The ban is the extension of measures set by the United Nations Security Council Sanction Committee and the United States government against the terrorist individuals and entities.
Foreign Ownership of Domestic Media
Previous press laws included provisions restricting foreign ownership in the press. The law specified that a non-citizen of Pakistan could hold shares in any newspaper only with the previous approval of the government and only if such participation in ownership did not exceed 25 percent of the entire proprietary interest. Information on foreign ownership provisions in the proposed new press laws is unavailable.
Domestic Contacts with International Press Organizations
International press organizations are very active in Pakistan, especially in terms of monitoring the freedom of the press. The Pakistan Press Foundation, for example, is a nonprofit media research, documentation and training center committed to promoting freedom of the press in Pakistan and internationally. The foundation produces PPF NewsFlash , a service designed to highlight threats to press freedom in Pakistan.
The International Press Institute, a global network of editors, media executives, and leading journalists dedicated to the freedom of the press and improving the standards and practices of journalism, not only sponsors the annual World Press Freedom Day but also provides a World Press Freedom Review on journalism in Pakistan and the other 110 member countries. This organization was instrumental in sponsoring various seminars on World Press Freedom Day that allowed national debate and focus on the proposed new Press Council and press laws.
A third organization, Committee to Protect Journalists, is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization dedicated to the global defense of press freedom. This organization publishes special reports such as its 2000 publication of "Pakistan: The Press for Change." They also maintain a web site with regional homepages covering each country.
News Agencies
The Ministry of Information controls and manages the country's primary wire service, the APP. APP is both the government's own news agency and the official carrier of international wire service stories to the local media. The launching of a Web site by APP enables readers to browse and download the latest news. The news service is now directly fed into the computers of the subscribers simultaneously throughout Pakistan and overseas. Besides publishing in the English language, APP also issues news items in Urdu.
The other primary news agency in Pakistan is the PPI, a private independent news agency. Several other news agencies have also emerged in recent years, some funded by political groups. The few small privately owned wire services are circumspect in their coverage of sensitive domestic news and tend to follow a government line.
Foreign news bureaus include Agence France-Presse (France), Agenzia Nazionale Stampa Associata (Italy), Associated Press (United States), Deutsche Presse-Agentur (Germany), Inter Press Service (Italy), Reuters (United Kingdom), United Press International (United States), and Xinhua News Agency (People's Republic of China). All are located in the capital of Islamabad.