American Journalist May Be Expelled By Pakistan

By: Allan Wolper Pakistan is playing its Indian journalism card again. President Gen. Pervez Musharraf's government has refused to renew the visa of an American newspaperman, and it is poised to deport him back to the United States.

Rajiv Chandrasekaran, a foreign correspondent for The Washington Post, is the latest victim of a Pakistani policy designed to prevent journalists born in India -- or those of Indian descent -- from reporting within Pakistan.

"Rajiv's visa has not been renewed," said Phil Bennett, assistant managing editor for foreign affairs at the Post. "He has not yet been expelled from the country, and we are trying to do everything we can to keep that from happening. We think that not allowing Rajiv to stay is a mistake and unwarranted."

Bennett told E&P from his Washington office that he was working with Pakistani diplomats to solve the problem. "These people don't want to be seen as opposing the principles of a free press," Bennett said.

Pakistan's foreign office has informed the Post that Chandrasekaran has not written anything to gain the enmity of Musharraf's regime.

But Pakistan has told its government-friendly newspapers that its visa policy is part of a plan to deny India a place on the center stage in the war against terrorism.

Sources say the Pakistani government also believes that journalists with Indian ties might file anti-Pakistani dispatches on the dispute over Kashmir -- a border province that both Pakistan and India have claimed as their own since they split in two in 1947.

The News International, an English-language daily newspaper in Karachi, reported Sept. 25 that visa requests by journalists from India or with Indian backgrounds were not being processed because of government concerns that they would file stories critical of Pakistan.

"The government took this decision after reading and watching the unabated atrocious campaign against Pakistan in the wake of the terror attack in the U.S.," the newspaper said.