New York, February 19, 2010—Authorities in Pakistan should move swiftly to investigate Wednesday’s shooting murder of journalist Ashiq Ali Mangi in the southern province of Sind, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today.
Two men shot Mangi on his motorcycle while he was en route to his district press club in the town of Gambat, north of Karachi, before fleeing the scene, according to local press freedom group the Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists and local news reports. Mangi, a reporter for private television channel Mehran TV, may have been targeted because of his coverage of a local feud between two ethnic groups, the reports said.
“Police in Sindh must act quickly to investigate this killing and ascertain whether Ashiq Ali Mangi was killed for his work,” said CPJ Deputy Director Robert Mahoney. “Pakistan badly needs to reassure its journalists that it will address the climate of impunity for those who kill their colleagues.”
Local journalists walked out of covering the National Assembly and Senate on Thursday to protest the killing, local news reports said.
Pakistan was the fourth deadliest country in the world for journalists in 2009, according to CPJ research, and placed 10th on CPJ’s 2009 Impunity Index of countries that have consistently failed to solve media murders since 1999.