The piece by Husain Haqqani was actually the reproduction of an op-ed that was published in The New York Times last week. Ahmad Noorani, whose title at Jang Group is ‘Investigative Journalist’ has a response published next to the reproduction of Haqqani’s op-ed.

We do not intend to either defend or reject Husain Haqqani’s or Ahmad Noorani’s personal opinions as each is entitled to his own personal opinions. But we do believe it is important to note a few things about this ‘Haqqani vs. Noorani’ episode as it points to several important problems related to journalistic practices.

First is the simple fact that The News continues to blur the line between journalism and opinion making. If Jang Group values the opinions of Ahmad Noorani, they should move him from the Investigative Reporting department to the Editorial department. Publishing Mr Noorani’s personal opinions in place of factual news reports undermines the credibility of Jang Group‘s reporting as a whole as it suggests that the Editors do not know the difference between facts and opinions. Similarly, if The News wanted to republish Haqqani’s op-ed from The New York Times, they should have done so on the Opinion page, not the National News page. If they wanted to publish a response, that too should have appeared on the Opinion page by a qualified columnist or a member of the Editorial staff. Publishing these pieces in the National News section deprives readers of actual news reporting, displacing facts with opinions.

Then there are the serious factual problems with Mr Noorani’s column.

According Noorani’s piece, Husain Haqqani “accused the entire Pakistani nation as the only Muslim society, which supports terrorists”. This sounds terrible. And it would be if Haqqani had actually written such a thing. Here’s what Haqqani actually wrote: “Pakistan was the only Muslim country in which hundreds of demonstrators gathered to show solidarity with the dead terrorist figurehead”.

Haqqani wrote “hundreds of demonstrators” and Ahmad Noorani claimed that he accused “the entire Pakistani nation”. Haqqani wrote that some demonstrators “show solidarity with the dead terrorist” and Ahmad Noorani claimed that he said we all “support terrorists”. Ahmad Noorani then goes on to say that Haqqani “claimed the whole Pakistani nation was supporting Osama on his death anniversary”. Again, this would be a serious charge if it were true. But again, Haqqani’s op-ed contains no such claim. The fact that Haqqani’s op-ed was re-published next to Ahmad Noorani’s response makes this impossible to deny.

Did Noorani not actually read Haqqani’s piece before he wrote his response? Or is he simply lying about what Haqqani said in an attempt to vilify him? Either way, the next obvious question is how the Editors at The News could allow such a potentially libelous mistake to be published in their newspaper? Did they not read both Haqqani’s op-ed and Noorani’s response to fact-check before publishing them?

These factual errors occur early in Noorani’s piece, and set the stage for some bizarre acts to follow. For example, shifting from Haqqani’s op-ed to the question of allegations against President Zardari, Noorani writes;

…none else than the US Senate itself had investigated this money laundering case and had held Haqqani’s boss in Islamabad guilty of money laundering.

This raises two important questions. First, how can Ahmad Noorani be trusted to provide accurate reports on court cases, which he often reports about, if he has already convicted certain parties in his own head? Is he a journalist or a wanna-be prosecutor? Second, if Ahmad Noorani accepts the findings of US Senators on the issue of money laundering in Pakistan, does he also accept the findings of US Senators on the issue of Taliban ‘safe havens’ in Pakistan? We would kindly request that Mr Noorani be careful how he selectively quotes foreign politicians against Pakistanis because his actions might result in grave consequences that he did not consider.

Things take a turn for the truly bizarre, though, when Noorani returns to the topic of Osama bin Laden’s presence in Pakistan and Haqqani’s asking “why Pakistanis are debating the secret US raid in Abbottabad and not asking who was responsible for his presence in that city”. In his response, Noorani asks the following question:

Has Mr Haqqani not been briefed about the Pakistani position on this issue and is he not supposed to discuss that as a representative of the Islamabad government in US media?

This is truly bizarre. Is Mr Noorani not aware that Haqqani resigned his position several months ago and holds no official position, therefore is neither party to briefings nor a representative of the govenrment? Noorani’s analysis also raises the question: what is this briefing about the Pakistan position on this issue – something that has not been publicly reported. If Mr Noorani is aware of briefings on an official position with regards to Osama bin Laden’s presence in Abbottabad, perhaps he should report them to the public. Or, if they are state secrets that he has been made privy to – officially or unofficially – perhaps he should not expose them in order to ‘get’ someone.

These are but a few of the factual errors and professional problems with Ahmad Noorani’s response to Husain Haqqani’s op-ed. Many more exist. Such can be expected given that Ahmad Noorani is not a professional analyst, but they are deeply troubling as he is supposedly an ‘Investigative Journalist’. How many of Ahmad Noorani’s supposedly investigative pieces are filled with factual mistakes and uninformed speculation? Ahmad Noorani is entitled to his own opinions, but he is not entitled to misrepresent his subjects and invent ‘facts’ from thin air.

Then there is the issue of editorial oversight, which appears to be completely missing in this case. Several of Ahmad Noorani’s factual errors are easily detected simply by reading the very first sentences of Husain Haqqani’s op-ed. If Ahmad Noorani did not read them, shouldn’t his editors have? This would have saved The News the embarrassment of publishing an opinion piece riddled with so many factual mistakes.

Finally, there is the issue of journalistic credibility. If The News publishes ‘Investigative Journalists’ who have already formed opinions about their subjects, how can readers know that what they are getting is objective research and not reports twisted by Confirmation Bias?

We take no position on the opinions contained in either piece. Haqqani’s op-ed was certainly worthy of a responding editorial, though why The News gave this assignment to Ahmad Noorani and not the Editorial staff leaves us scratching our heads. Certainly Ahmad Noorani is entitled to his opinion, but our concern is that his response contains so many glaring factual and ethical errors as to threaten the credibility of one of Pakistan’s largest newspapers by publishing it as it was filed.

Noorani’s piece may be a hit within certain quarters, but people who expect a newspaper to value facts – even those with no fondness for Husain Haqqani or the PPP – are certain to see Noorani’s column as a serious lapse in professional judgment. It will be interesting to see how the leadership of Jang Group will address this embarrassment.

See also:

• Jang Group Attacks Human Rights Watch
• Ahmad Noorani Wrong Again
• The News Report on Constitution Contains Factual Error
• Disaster Relief, Then and Now
• Dear Editors, Please Wake Up!
• Ahmad Noorani Mischaracterizes Zardari Statements, Contradicts Own Newspaper

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We noted a few years ago that Mr Sehgal had been praising US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and emphasising the need for Pakistan to accept the $7.5 billion US aid package known as ‘Kerry Lugar’ without informing the public that he had business relations with the American private security and logistics company G4S, formerly known as Wackenhut Corporation, which has contracts in Pakistan.

Actually, Mr Sehgal’s business interests go far beyond a simple association with an American private security company. He is Chairman of Pathfinder G4S, a company that owns defence and logistics businesses across Pakistan including the two largest private security G4S companies in Pakistan Security & Management Services (Private) Ltd and Wackenhut Pakistan (Pvt) Ltd, SMS Couriers (Private) Ltd, Pathfinder (Private) Ltd (Trade and Countertrade); other companies in the GROUP are; First Select Pakistan (Private) Ltd, Energy and Resource Services (Private) Ltd (energy-related projects) and Dynavis (Private) Ltd (Group marketing and publications). SMS Land Development (Pvt) Ltd and SMS Construction (Pvt) Ltd.

Here is a clip of Ikram Sehgal himself explaining his business interests on the American talk show Washington Journal:

We applaud Mr Sehgal on his business success, which is truly impressive. And, whether or not we disagree, we respect Mr Sehgal’s right to personally believe that military coups and dictatorships are the best path forward for the nation. But we also believe that more disclosure is needed so that when Mr Sehgal is presenting his views, people are not misled into believing that he is qualified as a trained academic. Ikram Sehgal is first and foremost a businessman who makes his money from defence and security contracts, including contracts with foreign governments. Media groups promoting Ikram Sehgal’s views should disclose this information so that the public can judge his opinions based on all the facts.

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Here is the real photo of Rupert Murdoch for comparison.

Has no one at The News actually seen a photo of Rupert Murdoch before? More importantly, doesn’t anyone at The News know what a human being looks like? The bizarre proportions on the figure in the photo published should have at least made someone check the authenticity of the photo before it went to publication. And a simple ‘Google Images’ search would have easily revealed that it was not a real photo of the subject.

As funny as this mistake is, it raises troubling questions about fact checking and credibility at The News. If such an obvious fake can make it all the way to print, what else in The News has not been fact-checked or verified?

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The story Shaheen Sehbai Tweeted is posted on the website ‘News Central Asia’, which is run by former officer Pakistan Navy Tariq Saeedi who emigrated to Turkmenistan.

In 2002, it was not America that Tariq Saeedi was warning about, but a conspiracy by “Mossad, RAW and Israeli-Russian-Ukrainian drug mafia” to take over the entire world. As usual, though, taking over the entire world starts by taking over Pakistan. And these Hindu-Zionists were being aided by a government official who “aimed to undermine the whole foundation of Pakistan”. According to Tariq Saeedi, that official was Benazir Bhutto.

It cannot be said with certainty but there are some reasons to assume that Benazir Bhutto, the former prime minister of Pakistan, wittingly or unwittingly, played in the hands of RAW-Mossad masterminds. High ups in Pakistan’s military still believe that Benazir Bhutto has connections with RAW-Mossad nexus and General Pervez Musharraf himself declared her as “security risk” during a chat with Pakistan’s leading editors and correspondents just before his referendum campaign.

Benazir’s visit to India last year at a time when Pakistan was going through one of the worst crises in its history, and her statements there which aimed to undermine the whole foundation of Pakistan, generated more than a flicker of doubt in analytic minds. The basic question arises: Who is Benazir Bhutto? Leaving BB to her own fate, let’s return to RAW-Mossad connection.

Saeedi updated his story by 2010, though, leaving behind the slanderous accusations against Benazir Bhutto and transforming America from the simple pawn of Mossad to a global force preparing for a full-scale invasion of Pakistan.

He explained, “The US Navy would be in a position after July 2010 to station some landing ships, probably four, near the territorial waters of Pakistan. They would be able to land and support more than 30000 troops, complete with transport units and fighting gear, anywhere at the Pakistan coastline between Pasni and Gawadar. There would be aircraft carriers with more than enough warplanes to overwhelm the Pakistan Airforce. This is the other jaw of the pincer.”
The picture thus emerging was that after July 2010, the US would have substantial number of troops at the border of Pakistan with Afghanistan. This is the area where the Chagai district of Pakistani Balochistan meets the provinces of Helmand and Kandahar in Afghanistan.

The total number of these troops, Oleg in Moscow estimated, would be more than 35000.

Simultaneously, as Simon told us, there would be some 30000 soldiers and marines waiting to land at the beaches of Balochistan. This makes military sense, especially in the face of the fact that the part of Balochistan that lies between these two pressure points does not have any significant presence or support system of Pakistan army.

As usual, this conspiracy theory too did not turn out as predicted. So why is Shaheen Sehbai projecting the old tales of a discredited conspiracy theorist? The answer may lie in his Tweet.

Shaheen Sehabi recommends Tariq Saeedi’s tale with the caveat, “Don’t know how credible is it, but must see n react”. In other words, Shaheen Sehbai read some sensational tale on the internet and without taking a few minutes to check the credibility of the piece and its author, he recommended it as ‘must see’. This Tweet was not even based on the rumour from a personal source, but some random writing posted on the internet! It took us approximately 5 minutes to determine just how credible the story is.

This raises the obvious question of what other sensational tales Shaheen Sehbai has repeated without doing any background checks or investigations. That Shaheen Sehbai does not know how credible the tales he is repeating are raises troubling questions about Shaheen Sehbai’s own credibility.

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Saleem begins by terming the Prime Minister an ‘ex-con’ based on his having been convicted by the Supreme Court of contempt and completing his 30-second sentence. But even in the very first paragraph the author’s argument begins to run into problems. According to Farrukh Saleem, the dictionary defines a convict as a “person found guilty of a crime and sentenced by a court.”

The Prime Minister, however, was never charged with a crime. According to Dawn, “The bench of the Supreme Court had charged the prime minister with civil contempt, instead of judicial or criminal contempt”. If the Prime Minister was not charged with a crime, how could he be convicted of such? Such mischaracterisations raise the question whether Farrukh Saleem is trying to have an honest discussion about the Prime Minister’s case, or whether he has some other agenda.

Actually, facts do not appear to have been the purpose of Farrukh Saleem’s article, anyway, as is evidenced by his second paragraph in which the author proposes his own sentence against the Prime Minister:

The ‘ex-con’ label, in the world outside the Land of the Pure, attracts lifelong implications including social stigma, vilification, societal and employment discrimination. Social stigma is when society thinks that a particular person has done something “really bad”. Social stigma is the “severe disapproval of, or discontent with, a person on the grounds of” criminality. As a consequence there are severe consequences including being branded for life, employment plus loan discrimination. All in all, these are all societal measures to discourage such behaviour.

The author then writes something that suggests the Prime Minister alone is not his target:

Plus, the day the Supreme Court found the PM guilty of a crime saw a PPP candidate winning in Multan PP-194 by-elections.

What does the success of Usman Bhatti in PP-194 by-elections have to do with the Prime Minister’s contempt case? Is it the case that Farrukh Saleem is upset not because he believes the Prime Minister did not receive harsh enough punishment, but because a certain political party continues to succeed at the polls?

The answer may be found in Farrukh Saleem’s concluding paragraph in which he explains his own theory of ‘journalism’.

Law does not belong to the courts alone, the Pakistani society-and the voter-must also vilify and discriminate against the behaviour and actions that have been declared as being criminal or illegal by the courts.

The author appears to be boldly suggesting that voters should punish the PPP as a whole because the Prime Minister was convicted on a charge of civil contempt in a complicated and controversial case. Farrukh Saleem starts his column by mischaracterising the Prime Minister’s case, and then uses this mischaracterisation to request voters to punish the Prime Minister’s party at the polls. This is not journalism, it’s political activism.

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As the president stood up to deliver his fifth presidential address to the joint session of parliament, his chair fell to the ground with a crash, but the president had by this time already moved towards the rostrum.

The News reported this bit of…news?…by quoting unidentified “cautious parliamentarians” suggesting that the falling chair “could only portend a bad outcome for the government”, as if Parliament House were swarming with jinns who move chairs in order to signal their favour or disfavour with elected officials.

According to The News, “A senior party official, however, shrugged off the incident saying that it was just a trivial occurrence and not worthy of discussion”.  Perhaps, but it was this trivial occurrence was front page news for Jang Group.

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In his article of Monday, Sehbai accuses the government of hatching a sinister plan to hold onto power. What is this sinister plan? Apparently, the government is planning to complete its term.

According to Sehbai, the PPP leadership is hatching a scheme “to extend the present conglomerate of power-sharing at the Centre and in the provinces for so long that all threats, including General Kayani and Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry, retire and get out of their way.” But wait…General Kayani and Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry both are serving terms that end in 2013 – the same year as the present government’s term ends also. So is this “sinister plan” really just the government planning to complete its democratically elected term? According to Sehbai, the answer is yes.

An indication of the plan has already been given by Opposition leader Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan who has candidly admitted that he saw no prospects of a general elections in 2012, meaning that the present assemblies will complete their five-year term and the pressure for early polls was no longer being felt.

In other words, Shaheen Sehbai believe that the government planning to finish its democratically elected term amounts to an “extremely dangerous plan” and “a twisted scheme”.

Actually, Sehbai’s latest conspiracy is just the latest version of Shaheen Sehbai’s worn out anti-Zardari script. If you remember, when the present government was first elected, Shaheen Sehbai was part of a vocal group of Zardari haters whose personal animosity for the president was so strong that they declared the government a failure before it even began. With each passing event, the Zardari Haters Club predicted the imminent fall of the government, and each time they were proven wrong.

As the years passed, the script began to change. No longer was Zardari an incompetent and bumbling joker, now he was an evil genius whose diabolical schemes knew no limits.

Shaheen Sehbai then proceeded to beg other political parties to “stop Zardari & Co”, only to turn his attacks on those same parties when they did not fulfill his wishes. Eventually, Sehbai’s personal hatred for Zardari was reduced to petty insults and factual errors.

For its part, the government has responded to Sehbai’s latest piece by simply stating the obvious:

“There is no sinister plan underway and the government is fully committed to the norms of democracy. All constitutional institutions will complete their term specified by the constitution of Pakistan and speculating otherwise tantamount to mockery of constitutional institutions, the spokesman has added.

“The spokesman has further said, we must acknowledge that the will of the masses is the basis of the authority of government and everyone should respect the mandate given to the government by the people of Pakistan. The civilian and democratically elected leadership of the country is working to make Pakistan as a safe, secure, democratic, modern and progressive country where there is respect for the rights of the people and an assuring environment for the citizens at large to progress and develop their skills and passions.

“Moreover the democratically elected civilian government has respect for the judiciary and will continue to do so. On the other hand the government and the national security institutions are working together to strengthen the defence of Pakistan.

“Finally, democracy is a matter of great patience. It may seem amusing to few to dislodge a government prematurely or demand mid-term elections every now and then, but true democracy lies in governmental stability between scheduled national elections.”

In response, Sehbai has said that it would be better if the government focus on important issues rather than “what I write”. We agree. We also think it would be better if The News and Jang Group would focus on important issues rather than continuing to run repeats of worn out conspiracy theories and petty political attacks.

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In his spoken testimony at the US Congress, Ali Dayan did allege the military of forced disappearances and target killings. Though PMW has no way to know whether military personnel have or have not been involved in such acts, it is hardly a novel claim. Actually, it is not uncommon to see protests about this very claim.

It should also be noted that the Supreme Court is currently hearing a case about the issue of missing persons possibly detained and abused by security forces also. This does not mean that allegations are true – that is for the court to determine. But it does mean that Ali Dayan’s claim is not unheard of.

Despite Ahmad Noorani’s characterisation, Ali Dayan did not offer a one-sided view or hold security institutions “solely responsible for the whole crisis” as claimed by Ahmad Noorani. In his spoken testimony, Ali Dayan told the hearing that “there are abuses that we have documented by Baloch nationalist militants, particularly against education personnel and against other non-Baloch residents of the province”. He went on to note that “Non-Baloch, particularly Punjabi settlers and Urdu-speaking settlers in Balochistan, are living equally in fear of their lives because of fear of attack from Baloch nationalists”. And it was not just the military and Baloch militants who took criticism from Human Rights Watch. Ali Dayan also pointed out attacks by sectarian militants against Hazara Shia in Balochistan.

In his longer written statement, Ali Dayan goes into more detail about “non-state groups” responsible fore human rights abuses in Balochistan including attacks against “police and security forces and military bases”.

Armed militant groups in Balochistan are responsible for targeted killings and destroying private property. In the past several years, they have increasingly targeted non-Baloch civilians and their businesses, as well as major gas installations and infrastructure. They have also struck police and security forces and military bases throughout the province.

Three distinct non-state groups are responsible for violence against civilians in the province: militant Baloch nationalist groups seeking separation or autonomy for Balochistan that target Punjabis and other minorities; militant Sunni Muslim groups such as the Lashkar-eJhangvi that attack members of the Shia community; and armed Islamist groups that have most recently attacked those who act contrary to their interpretation of Islam.

Militant nationalist groups such as the Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) and the Baloch Liberation United Front (BLUF) have claimed responsibility for most killings of non-Baloch civilians, including teachers and other education personnel. They attempt to justify these attacks as a nationalist Baloch response to grievances against the state, and retaliation against abuses that state security forces have committed against Baloch community members.

Amidst the violence, Balochistan’s long-term problems of governance and the stand-off between the Pakistani military and Baloch militants have deepened a general perception in the province of neglect, discrimination, and denial of rights. These are exacerbated by the continuing tribal system and its archaic social structures, the influence of the tribal chief on the justice system and police, and the consequent denial of citizens’ fundamental rights.

The poor and marginalized, particularly women, are adversely affected by traditional forms of dispute resolution and lack of access to other redress mechanisms. They lack assets and opportunities, have no social safety net, and are bound by practices that affect their welfare. There are frequent reports of both state law enforcement agencies and local power-brokers committing abuses against marginalized populations. Labor conditions are abysmal, and there is no single system of justice despite a uniform civil and criminal code. The widespread use of tribal jirgas (councils) and other informal forums of justice increase the difficulty of seeking redress and obtaining justice, devaluing its quality.

Finally, the violence has denuded the already thinly spread provision of public safety. Organized police services cover only a fraction of the province’s territory (about 4 percent of the land area), while the rest is covered by tribal recruits forming levies.

Unfortunately, readers would not know the facts about Ali Dayan’s testimony because Ahmad Noorani failed to report them in his piece. Ahmad Noorani claims in his article that Ali Dayan presented ‘wrong facts and figures’, but he addresses no facts or figures in his piece. He did, however, give significant space in his article for political statements against the government by Senior PML-N leader Khawaja Asif, which has nothing to do with the subject of the article.

Instead of reporting what Ali Dayan actually said, Noorani implied that Ali Dayan blamed the military for all abuses and then reported his phone numbers including his international cell number which serves no legitimate journalistic purpose and only invites abuse and harassment.

Neither is this the first time that Ahmad Noorani and The News have attacked Human Rights Watch. Last month during the ‘memogate’ hearings, The News published multiple hit pieces targeting Human Rights Watch, even accusing HRW of being ‘a foreign organisation working in Pakistan under the cover of human rights’.

Human Rights Watch is an internationally respected NGO, not a political activist group. And Ali Dayan Hasan is a respected human rights advocate, not a Baloch militant. The responsibility of professional news journalists and media groups is to report facts, not hit pieces.

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On the front page of The News and Daily Jang on Monday, Ansar Abbasi writes that “Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani would make history today (Monday), not as a hero but as a villain”.

Now, if your first reaction to this is, “Wait…that’s not reporting facts, that’s just Ansar Abbasi’s opinion”, then congratulations – you are correct. But Jang Group publishing opinions instead of news is an old story. So let’s take a look at exactly what leads Abbasi to his opinion and see if he is at least giving readers all the facts so that they can make an informed decision about whether Abbasi’s harsh judgment is warranted.

According to Ansar Abbasi, “The Supreme Court had given him all possible opportunities to uphold rule of law by implementing the apex court’s order in the NRO case but Gilani has opted to be remembered as a loyal to his soiled party leadership”. This is certainly one interpretation of events. But there is interpretation that Ansar Abbasi conveniently ignores – one actually based in the constitution.

The Prime Minister has said continually that he has not written a letter requesting the Swiss authorities to open corruption cases against the president because he has been advised that to do so would be in violation of Article 248.

It should be noted that PM Gilani is not trained as a lawyer – his educational background is as a journalist. But being a lawyer is not a requirement for being Prime Minister. Actually, there is the Ministry of Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs which tenders advice to all the Federal Government on legal and constitutional questions.

In this case, the Prime Minister was advised by the Ministry of Law that writing the letter would be a violation of Article 248 of the Constitution, which says that, “No criminal proceedings whatsoever shall be instituted or continued against the President or a Governor in any court during his term of office”. This is advice that his attorney, Aitzaz Ahsan, has confirmed and argued before the Court.

Essentially, the Supreme Court is ordering the PM to act against the advice of the Ministry of Law under threat of contempt – something legal experts have described as a ‘contempt trap’

If one were to give the benefit of the doubt to the accused in the instance of Gilani’s contempt proceedings, one could see that Gilani has fallen victim to a type of contempt trap. The court has continued to demand that Gilani write a letter to Swiss authorities, asking for Pakistan to be reinstated as a party to the money laundering case against President Zardari. However, under Article 248 of the Constitution, Zardari enjoys immunity from all prosecutions while he is sitting as President of Pakistan.

During the recent hearings, Aitzaz Ahsan went so far as to say that the Swiss authorities had been contacted by government and they have chosen not to pursue a case against Zardari, respecting his immunity under the Pakistani constitution. The court was perhaps frustrated to hear this information so late in the game, after so many requests from the Prime Minister to explain his position and to show that his government took the court’s orders seriously.

Despite the fact that the court’s order to reopen the Swiss cases is no longer likely or possible, they are continuing in their contempt hearings against the Prime Minister. This is remarkable because the court is essentially asking the Prime Minister to violate Article 248, which the Prime Minster cannot do as a sworn member of Parliament, and thus invoking his contempt of the court proceedings.

Others have noted that Article 248 does not only provide immunity to the President, but provides qualified immunity to the Prime Minister.

The President, a Governor, the Prime Minister, a Federal Minister, a Minister of State, the Chief Minister and a Provincial Minister shall not he answerable to any court for the exercise of powers and performance of functions of their respective offices or for any act done or purported to be done in the exercise of those powers and performance of those functions

Despite these assessments, the Prime Minister has not questioned the Supreme Court’s right to hear the case nor attempted to create a political issue out of the case. Rather, he has appeared before the Supreme Court not once but twice – ironically, making history as the first Prime Minister to show such respect to the judiciary where past Prime Ministers have chosen to storm the Supreme Court.

Nor did the Prime Minister request the president to remove the justices as was done by Gen. Mushararaf. Actually, Gilani’s first act as Prime Minister was to release from house arrest those judges who had been detained by Gen. Musharraf.

Unfortunately, none of these historical facts appears in Ansar Abbasi’s front page column. Instead, he quickly moves away from the facts of the case at hand and resorts to repeating claims like, “corruption of Rs8,500 billion has been recorded during these four years as per the Transparency International’s assessment”. We have searched the TI website and have been unable to find any such assessment. Perhaps Ansar Abbasi is referring to his previous articles that have already been discredited.

In the past, history was often written by the victors. With the spread of the printing press, competing histories became written by different sides. With the advent of the Internet, this has become even more the case. Histories can be found that are written from all sides and perspectives – winners, losers, and bitter old men. Certainly Ansar Abbasi will have his own view of history, and that is his right. But facts are facts, and we hope that in the future, Jang Group will seek to include more facts and less biased opinion.

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The latest series of stories began last weekend when Ansar Abbasi reported for The News that “Pakistan has lost…more than Rs8,500 billion…during the last four years”. Abbasi’s source, for once with a name, is none other than Transparency International Pakistan (TIP) Advisor Syed Adil Gilani giving the claim some credibility. But the numbers quoted, rather than giving a clear view of corruption, actually provide a confusing and convoluted picture of the so-called “corruption”.

After several paragraphs of condemning statements, Abbasi finally gets to some hard numbers. But what readers are presented with are not cases of government officials pocketing money or steering it to their cronies. Instead, we are told that “circular debt is Rs190 million”, “state-owned enterprises like PSO, PIA, Pakistan Steel, Railways, SSGC, SNGC are eating away Rs150-300 billion per annum”, and “tax to GDP ratio in 2008 was 11%, which in 2011 has reduced to 9.1% instead of being increased”.

Economists can debate the proper level of circular debt and whether the government should own enterprises like airlines, railways, etc. But this is not corruption. Neither is the tax-to-GDP ratio. According to Abbasi, “this the drop of 1.9% in the tax GDP means annual loss of US$ 3.3 billion”. Even if his maths are correct, does he honestly expect us to believe that the PM has personally evaded US $3.3 billion in taxes? Again, this is a cultural problem – not official corruption.

Abbasi’s article takes a turn for the truly bizarre, however, when he attempts the following mathematical misdirection:

The TIP adviser added that India’s tax-GDP ratio is 18%, and at that rate, Pakistan’s tax evasion/corruption in FBR is 9% of $175 billion, which is US$15.5 billion per year, i.e. Rs1,400 billion per year.

Did you see what he did there? He’s not even comparing apples to oranges. Rather, he is suggesting that we pretend that the apples are oranges so that we can get an even higher number!

Believing he had discovered a magic formula for attacking the government, Ansar Abbasi continued his assault on mathematics a few days later when he claimed that he was mistaken on Sunday. The present government has not cost the nation Rs8.5 trillion – but Rs20 trillion!.

Where did Abbasi find an additional Rs9.5 trillion? After his article appeared on Sunday, he apparently received a phone call from his friend Dr Shahid Siddiqi who suggested some additional “corruption” that he could add to his equation. Now, in addition to counting spending for public enterprises like transport and steel, Ansar Abbasi is including national security spending as “corruption”.

Quoting the State Bank of Pakistan figures, Siddiqi said the cost of war on terror to country’s economy from April 1, 2008 till January 31, 2012 stands at Rs4400 billion ($50 billion).

And not only is he adding military spending, he is also adding in trade deficits and monetary devaluation!

The trade deficit of these years has been $47 billion where as the Pak rupee fell from Rs68.16 per dollar in June 2008 to Rs90.50 in February 2012. The rupee fell by Rs22.3 per dollar during these years. A total of $30 billion has been transferred out of Pakistan during the first three financial years of the Gilani regime.

At this point the question must be asked if there is anything Ansar Abbasi and his sources believe is not corruption?

It should be noted that Dr Shahid Siddiqi appears to be a ‘go-to’ economist for Ansar Abbasi’s economic hit pieces. In October 2011, Ansar Abbasi quoted Dr Siddiqi extensively terming the government as “lying” about economics and bleeding the country through corruption. Ansar Abbasi quoted Dr Siddiqi again in December 2011 as saying “the overall economic situation of Pakistan under the present regime is the worst in the 64-year history of Pakistan”.

Mr Adil Gilani, too, may have a grudge to bear against the present government as he has found himself summoned before Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) Lahore over questions about his relationship with National insurance Company Ltd board member Qasim Amin Dada. Previously, it was reported, Mr Adil Gilani’s son resigned from his position as board member of Pakistan National Shipping Corporation (PNSC) after questions were raised about his appointment.

We do not question that corruption is a legitimate and serious problem in society. But stirring up a cloud of dust and calling it smoke does not make a fire. Hit pieces based on formulas that inflate numbers do not help expose and eliminate corruption, it only serves to distract from those who are legitimately trying to shine a light on serious issues of corruption and governance. If we are going to reduce and eliminate corruption, we need serious journalists to do the honest work of reviewing data and separating what is and is not legitimate use of taxpayer funds.

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