Pakistan refuses visa to Praveen Swami

[Daredevil]

Pakistan refuses visa to Praveen Swami

It was on MEA's invitation that "The Hindu" nominated him to accompany Krishna

Pakistan refused a visa to The Hindu's Praveen Swami, who was to have travelled with the media delegation accompanying External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna on his two-day visit to Islamabad that began on Friday.

The Pakistan High Commission gave no reasons for turning down Mr. Swami's visa application.

The Hindu's Editor, Siddharth Varadarajan, said it had been conveyed to him on Thursday that the newspaper could nominate another reporter, and the Pakistan High Commission would arrange the visa for the substitute immediately.

"We refused the offer. It is not acceptable for anyone to dictate who we can send to cover a story," Mr. Varadarajan said.

It was on an invitation from the Ministry of External Affairs in August that the newspaper nominated Mr. Swami, the Resident Editor of the newspaper in Delhi, to go with Mr. Krishna.

After submitting the documents required for the visa, Mr. Swami was invited to the Pakistan High Commission in New Delhi earlier this week for a meeting with the official in charge of media relations.

According to him, there was nothing about the meeting that led him to believe that he would not be given a visa.

On Thursday, Mr. Swami heard from the MEA that he had been denied the visa. His passport showed that he had been granted a visa initially, but the word "CANCELLED" was stamped across the page.

As many as 60 journalists have accompanied Mr. Krishna to Islamabad. The Hindu is the only organisation whose nominee did not get a visa.

 

[Daredevil]

And the reason for the refusal is very amusing and gives an insight into the thinking of Pakistanis and how much kool-aid they have been drinking about their own lies. Goebbels would be glad.

Pak gives Indian journo poetry book but denies visa

Signing a new visa regime is one of the objectives of External Affairs Minister SM Krishna three-day visit to Pakistan starting tomorrow (8 September). But on the eve of the trip, in which Krishna will be accompanied by a plane-load of journalists, Pakistan has chosen to reject the visa application of Praveen Swami of The Hindu – offering further evidence that mistrust runs deep between the two countries.

Oddly, Swami's visa was first granted and then rejected by the Pakistani authorities, without any explanation being given.

The Ministry for External Affairs usually sends invitations to media organisations, who in turn nominate the journalists they want to send. Documents are then sent and the host country then gives the individual the visa.

Swami had supplied the documents for the visa and was even called for a meeting at the Pakistani high commission, where he was spoken to very politely, given a book of poetry and told by the man present at the meeting that the 26 November 2008 terror strikes were an American plot.

"The meeting ended on a very pleasant note," he said.

However, while other journalists soon received their passports stamped with a visa, Swami's arrived with a visa and a cancelled stamp on it.

While the Pakistan authorities said they were willing to give any other nominee of The Hindu a visa for the visit, the newspaper decided not to send anyone. Unfortunately for Swami, even the Indian government chose not to rake up the issue and did not put it's foot down with its Pakistani counterparts.

"In my view, every country is entitled to give or reject a visa to visit it under normal circumstances. But in the case of journalists accompanying a formal visit by a minister, if a host country starts choosing who can go and who cannot, it is disturbing. It is just immature to deny someone a visa," Swami said.

Given the manner in which Swami's visa was rejected, one suspects that the visa may have been rejected by the military establishment due to the journalist's articles on national security and intelligence agencies on both sides of the border, which might not have been received too well.

Swami, who hasn't ever been to Pakistan before, said he "was not surprised". However, he doesn't see the logic behind it.

"I can maintain contacts with people across the border over Skype, telephone and other means. Pakistani newspapers are easily available online"¦In a larger sense, policy makers on both sides of the border need to understand that the world has changed dramatically in the last decade and a half and it is not possible to implement such information control purely by rejecting visas," he said.

While India also doesn't have the best record when it comes to accepting visitors from across the border, particularly journalists and academicians, it has improved in recent years. But there has been little change in Pakistan, Swami said.

"For years now everyone has been saying that journalists, academicians and researchers from both countries should be allowed to travel freely across the border but we don't have a single doctoral student from either India or Pakistan in the neighbouring country conducting research," he said.

Why? Because the governments of both countries, despite overtures to each other, have not really relaxed their visa norms.

"If the countries have any intention of comprehending ground realities in the other nation they need to open up far, far more," Swami said.

 

[parijataka]

Pakistanis got confused by the name `The Hindu` - Hindu is the most anti-Hindu left wing newspaper!

PS - no reaction from our Krishna ji, trip to Pakistan was very satisfying I hope.

 

[Daredevil]

The denial of the visa was not a simple affair. The visa was denied after Pakistani High Commission in Delhi gave him -

"¦long and didactic lectures on how September 11 and 26/11 were American conspiracies and how America was a common enemy to both India and Pakistan.

Swami told the TOI that he was called by the High Commission early this week for a meeting with Press Attache Manzoor Ali Memon that lasted for over an hour after two Pakistani officials, who did not share their visiting cards with him, dropped in. "I was asked no questions but instead handed out sermons by the two on how Indian and Pakistani media could join hands to counter American conspiracies," Swami said.

The journalist gave them a patient audience and told them that he was ignorant about the revelations they had made about "American plots" and he "would love to catch up on the wikileaks evidence against America they were referring to."[ToI]

The curious case of Praveen Swami’s visa | Pragmatic Euphony