A media watchdog said Pakistan had expelled a reporter for the New York Times Magazine who interviewed Taliban leaders and visited Balochistan province on the Afghan border but the government denied he was deported. The Pakistani government said he was not expelled and left the country of his own volition.
The journalist, Nicholas Schmidle, whose report "Next-General Taliban" appeared in the magazine at the weekend, was deported on Friday, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said. "The article contained interviews with anti-government Taliban leaders and was written from ... Balochistan province, and its capital, Quetta," the New York-based watchdog said.
The Committee quoted Scott Malcomson, Schmidle's editor at the magazine, as saying that no explanation was given for the journalist's deportation. However, he said, the deportation was "clearly connected to his writing rather than anything else he was doing".
An information ministry official said Schmidle did not have a journalist's visa. "He was on a two-year fellowship here and had visited sensitive areas in Balochistan without permission and did reporting. He was not on a journalist visa," the official said, on condition of anonymity. "Initially a deportation order was served to him but it was later withdrawn. He left Pakistan on his own," he added. The CPJ expressed concern over growing attacks by the government of President Pervez Musharraf on media.