Dawn CEO Hameed Haroon triggers claims of bias after soft talk on Nawaz Sharif in BBC interview

File image of Nawaz Sharif | Twitter/@pid_gov

The paper is said to have borne the brunt of an alleged military crackdown on the Pakistan media ahead of the 25 July general election.

Hyderabad: The chief executive officer of Pakistan’s Dawn Media Group, which is said to have borne the brunt of an alleged clampdown on press freedom by the military, has triggered outrage with his “failure” to substantiate his allegations against the armed forces in an interview with the BBC.

Hameed Haroon, who was invited as a guest on the interview show HARDtalk, has also been criticised for allegedly betraying a bias towards ousted Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and his daughter Maryam Nawaz, who were recently convicted of corruption and sentenced to prison.

The interview, a discussion on the alleged clampdown on media ahead of Pakistan’s 25 July general election, followed an op-ed Haroon wrote for The Washington Post, where he alleged the military was carrying out a “dirty war against press freedom in Pakistan”.

When host Stephen Sackur noted that he was seen to be “supportive, sympathetic” towards the Sharifs, Haroon said there was an “element of orchestration” in Nawaz Sharif’s corruption and arrest.

By the end of the interview, Sackur said that Haroon seemed to be doing exactly what he was writing against in The Washington Post by fuelling unsubstantiated claims against the Pakistani establishment.

“You pose here as the defenders of journalistic integrity, independence and impartiality in Pakistan, and yet to many in Pakistan, not least in the military, you are not seen as entirely neutral, independent and impartial because over the last couple of years you basically seem to be increasingly giving a platform to one particular political player, Nawaz Sharif, who has run into an awful lot of trouble because of allegations of corruption,” Sackur said, adding that this kind of partiality is dangerous for a journalist.

“I think, basically, there was a civil-military narrative that went wrong, and Dawn was the messenger, and a large part of it was about shooting the messenger,” he said.

Media under siege?

Dawn, Pakistan’s oldest and most widely read English newspaper, is said to have ruffled quite a few feathers with an interview of Sharif, published this May, where he seemed to admit the role of Pakistani non-state actors in the 26/11 terror attack on Mumbai and criticised the military.

Two years ago, too, the group had landed in the crosshairs with the Dawn Leaks, reporting the minutes of a confidential meeting between the government and military officials where the former reportedly told the armed forces to act against militant groups in light of the country’s growing international isolation.

Retribution to the reports has allegedly manifested in the blocking of Dawn’s circulation in certain parts of Pakistan, and the transmission of its news channel in cantonment areas.

Activists and journalists have said this is part of a larger crackdown on the country’s media, which has also seen a journalist’s alleged abduction and an assault on another. There have also been reports that a blackout of Pakistan’s most popular news channel, Geo TV, in April was carried out at the military’s behest to send out a message about reportage sympathetic to Sharif.

Military’s ‘love for Imran Khan’

On HARDtalk, Haroon insisted that Sharif’s conviction didn’t seem above-board.

Pressed for evidence to back his claims, he said social media trolls and online attacks on Dawn indicated a “very large presence” of the Inter Services Public Relations, the media wing of the Pakistan armed forces, on social media.

Haroon also accused the Pakistani intelligence community of meddling in politics, saying the military wanted “second-level string leaders” to triumph in the general elections. When Sackur asked if he was referring to former cricketer Imran Khan, the chief of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf and a prime ministerial aspirant, Haroon did not deny it. “There are times when Imran’s index goes up with the security state,” he said.

Haroon’s allegation bodes ill for Pakistan, a nascent democracy set for just its second transition of power through elections since 1947 after years under military rule established by coups.

Sackur noted as much. “You just said something potentially explosive in Pakistani politics, that Imran’s fortunes go up and down depending on the interventions of the deep state and the intelligence services. Where is your evidence,” he asked.

Evidence, Haroon replied, should be “inferred through the works of human rights organisations and political commentators”.

Khan later responded to the Dawn CEO’s comments on Twitter, terming the paper biased.

The blatant bias of Dawn against PTI has now come out in the open. So much for Dawn's neutral and liberal credentials! Complete farce! Full marks to Stevan Sackur for exposing Dawn in his BBC HardTalk interview.

— Imran Khan (@ImranKhanPTI) July 17, 2018

The Dawn Media Group has not made an official statement in response to the interview.

Funny thing is that there is absolutely no mention of Hameed Haroon's BBC Hard Talk interview on Dawn's own website — or the reaction to it

— omar r quraishi (@omar_quraishi) July 17, 2018

How on earth this epic interview of Hameed Haroon went unnoticed entirely on Electronic and Social media paradigm of Pakistan when almost whole of media has joined kitchen cabinet of convicted Nawaz Sharif. This should be played as Paid content on national airtime pic.twitter.com/cLtKh0x6b8

— Hassan Khan (@hassan_k82) July 16, 2018

Social media outrage against Dawn was widespread, with hundreds of users saying the interview was “embarrassing” and an “expose” of Dawn and its operative methods.

This has got to be the most embarassing thing happening to @dawn_com where even BBC says you are not seen as independent nor impartial.. Embarrassing seeing the response by Hameed Haroon, seriously embarrassing! pic.twitter.com/6g2fEOsxv9

— Adeel Raja (@adeelraja) July 17, 2018

Respected, Dawn seems like losing case against, let’s say, establishment, when CEO Hameed Haroon couldn’t provide convincing replies to great BBC HARDtalk inquisitor Stephen Sackur. Hameed was terribly under prepared or didn’t have specific answers. https://t.co/2TWmAefsiF

— Kamran Khan (@AajKamranKhan) July 17, 2018

Some people, however, said Haroon was being targeted for no reason.

Just finished listening to the Hameed Haroon interview on Hardtalk. He is nowhere near as weak in the interview as people here are making him out to be. Out of a 23 minute interview he is probably unprepared/weak on about two questions for a grand total of 3-4 minutes.

— Shaheryar Mirza (@mirza9) July 17, 2018

Hameed Haroon on HardTalk was right on election engineering in Pakistan. Again, those who criticize the establishment's meddling are asked "what proof do you have?"

I'm sorry, have you not read the history of Pakistan? Or seen with your own eyes how there is a media clampdown?

— Imaan Zainab Mazari-Hazir (@ImaanZHazir) July 17, 2018