NGOs say arrest bad for Pak democracy

“NGOs in the US, who care about Pakistan’s future, call for the release of Najam Sethi and the cessation of harassment of journalists,” he said. “It is time that Pakistan’s civilian government recognises as did its armed forces several years ago the truth of the Chinese saying that `a people can be conquered on horseback but they cannot be ruled from horseback’.”

Stephen Cohen of the Brookings Institution said that “as a nuclear weapon state, it is to Pakistan’s advantage to have a free and untrammeled press, instead of a subservient and meek one.” He said terrorising press would makethings difficult for Pakistan in the near future.

George Tanham, a South Asia security analyst, said “Najam Sethi is a patriotic Pakistani, an able and courageous journalist, and a fine human being. He is trying to improve his country and practise a free press, which is essential to democracy. It is not in Pakistan’s interest for the Prime Minister to imprison him or to close down the free press in Pakistan.”

Marvin Weinbaum of the Middle East Institute said “the friends of Pakistan in the US want Pakistan to develop as a democracy and has a necessary concern for the freedom of the press, particularly because the press remains at the moment one of the few remaining checks on arbitrary executive authority.