ISLAMABAD (Bangkok Post / Pacific Media Watch): Journalists in Pakistan are targets for a variety of different government and paramilitary agencies, placing them in an impossible position where they risk torture and death on a regular basis, says a human rights group.
Amnesty International told the Bangkok Post today that the government had "almost completely failed" to protect the lives of journalists in Pakistan, 34 of whom have been killed since 2008.
The newspaper reported that a "furious row" is raging between the government's spy agency - the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency - and media corporation Jang over last week's attempted murder of journalist Hamid Mir.
Mir was shot but survived to tell the tale and Jang has accused the ISI of being involved.
Amnesty International said: "The spy agency has been implicated in several abductions, torture and killings of journalists, but no serving ISI official has ever been held to account --allowing it to effectively operate beyond the reach of the law".
Some of the other groupings threatening Pakistani journalists include the Pakistani Taliban, Al-Qaeda-linked groups, ethnic Baluch rebels, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ) militants and the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), a political party dominant in Karachi.
Amnesty International said journalists are starting to "resort to self-censorship to protect themselves".
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