CONFUSION OVER WHETHER NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE REPORTER WAS DEPORTED FROM PAKISTAN
January 14th 2008 23:33
According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, Nicholas Schmidle, a freelance reporter whose latest piece, Next-Gen Taliban appeared in January 6 issue of The New York Times Magazine, has been deported from Pakistan.
But Reuters reported that the Pakistani government said he was not deported and left the country of his own volition.
An information ministry official said Schmidle did not have a journalist's visa. The official said, “He was on a two-year fellowship here and had visited sensitive areas in Baluchistan without permission and did reporting. He was not on a journalist visa. Initially a deportation order was served to him but it was later withdrawn. He left Pakistan on his own.”
While the deportation order was dated December 29, 2007, editors at the magazine say they believe it was back-dated, and that officials issued it after the magazine’s article ran. The reporter, who is also a fellow at the Washington-based Institute of Current World Affairs, regularly freelances for The New Republic and Slate. He had been in the country 16 months.
Schmidle is currently in London and is scheduled to return to the US,
Huffington Post reported, “Some believe that Schmidle's article antagonised Pakistani government officials because he conducted interviews in Quetta where the Taliban are operating in full public. These sources suggest that Pakistan government authorities want to limit exposure to the fact that they have done nothing to shut down the Taliban in Quetta and/or are turning a blind eye to the Taliban's operations there.”
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