The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), a New York-based body working for defence of journalists world-wide, on Thursday asked the United States to immediately release a Pakistani reporter working for Voice of America, who was detained on Sunday on his arrival in Washington.
The American media reported on Thursday it is not clear why Rahman Bunairee, 33, was taken into custody Sunday afternoon upon arriving at Dulles International Airport. Reports said Bunairee, who faced threats from militants in Pakistan, travelled on valid documents to spend some time in the United States.
"His employer arranged to bring him to Washington so that he could continue his journalism in relative safety," said Bob Dietz, CPJ Asia program co-ordinator, said. "US authorities must explain why they are holding a journalist with a valid US visa and release him immediately."
According to The Washington Post, Joan Mower, a spokeswoman for VOA, would not comment on the particulars of Bunairee's detention other than to say: "VOA is obviously extremely concerned. We're really upset about what's happened to this guy." Cori Bassett, a spokeswoman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, confirmed to the newspaper that Bunairee is in the agency's custody but said she could not release further details because of privacy reasons.
Bunairee, in addition to filing reports for VOA's Pashto-language radio service, is a popular reporter with the privately owned Pakistani broadcaster Khyber TV. He is usually based in the southern port city of Karachi, but he is originally from the Buner district of Pakistan's North-West Frontier Province near the Afghanistan border, where the Taliban and other militant groups are active.
On July 7, Bunairee participated in a VOA call-in radio show in which he discussed the Taliban's continued presence in Buner despite a major campaign by the Pakistani military to oust them last May, Mower said. Two nights later, several dozen armed militants went to Bunairee's family compound in Buner.
Bunairee was not there. The militants told his father that because Bunairee was "speaking against them," they had orders to destroy the house. The men allowed Bunairee's family, including his wife and four children, to leave, then ransacked the house and levelled it with explosives.
Most recently, Taliban militants flattened the houses of at least six journalists in the neighbouring district of Swat before fleeing advancing Pakistani forces, according to Bob Dietz. Bunairee travelled to the United States on a J-1 visa, often used by research institutions to bring in scholars and experts on temporary visits.
"We're expanding our Pashto broadcasting, and he was going to be working on that," Mower said, according to the Post. CPJ Co-ordinator Dietz said he was particularly concerned about the message that Bunairee's detention sends. "It's mortifying," he said. "Here's a journalist who has performed a valuable service by reporting from an area critical to US security," the Post reported.