13 press freedom organisations call for a re-investigation of Zubair Mujahid’s murder
On 23 November 2007, journalist Zubair Mujahid from Mirpurkhas, Pakistan, was killed. His case has never been solved. Free Press Unlimited together with 13 leading press freedom organisations is calling for a re-investigation of his murder in letters addressed to the Prime Minister of Pakistan and the Chief Minister of Sindh.
Zubair Mujahid was a journalist whose stories exposed corruption and human rights abuses. He was shot while he was sitting on the back of his colleague’s motorcycle, driving home after a long working day. The perpetrators have never been caught. Our A Safer World For The Truth team re-investigated the case, which revealed that the murder was never investigated in an effective and unbiased manner.
Therefore, a coalition of leading press freedom organisations, including Free Press Unlimited, request the Prime Minister of Pakistan and the Chief Minister of Sindh to order a judicial commission to oversee a re-investigation of Zubair Mujahid’s murder.
Read the complete investigation report on Zubair Mujahid’s case here.
The official letter
Honourable Prime Minister,
Mr. Shehbaz Sharif,
We hope this letter finds you in the best of health.
We, 13 leading press freedom organisations, write to you to share our concern regarding the security challenges faced by journalists in Pakistan and a proposal with regards to an avenue of progress.
Since 1992, 96 Pakistani journalists and media workers have been killed. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, 70 of those were murdered in direct connection to their work. But only one of these cases resulted in a conviction of the mastermind. It is a disconcerting fact – not only for journalists and proponents of press freedom but also for Pakistan’s criminal justice system as well as the state. The majority of incidents are not properly investigated as happened in the case of Zubair Ahmed Mujahid, a relatively unknown journalist based in Mirpurkhas. He wrote a weekly column for the Daily Jang, covering human rights abuses by the local police. On 23 November 2007, Zubair was shot dead while returning home with a colleague.
In 2021, A Safer World for the Truth (a consortium of press freedom organisations) conducted an investigation into Mujahid’s murder and analysed the case files. It concluded that the investigation contained grave errors and was neither effective nor unbiased. A summary of the report is enclosed with this letter. On December 10, the signatories of this letter concluded that a judicial inquiry ordered by your office is the only way to achieve justice. We hereby request you to order a judicial commission to oversee a re-investigation of Zubair Mujahid’s murder. The idea has been endorsed by the Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Public Policy & Strategic Communications Mr Fahd Husain.
We look forward to a follow-up meeting to share the details of the case with you. Please contact the coordinator of the coalition at bartman@freepressunlimited.com.
Yours faithfully,
