Bucak The Last Day Before Exile

Stories of Resistance, Displacement & Finding Home
1. Auflage 2023
ISBN: 978-1-912489-81-7
Verlag: 404 Ink
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 0 - No protection

E-Book, Englisch, Band 20, 112 Seiten

Reihe: Inklings

When we hear news stories about displaced people, people running away from war, living in exile, they're always accompanied by big numbers, presented as waves of immigrants. The Last Day Before Exile re-focuses the narrative to the human side, sharing some of the hardest moments of their lives, where they had to make the decision to stay or go. Tracing the steps of professionals who have moved from the Gaza Strip, Pakistan, Morocco, Iran, Afghanistan Turkey, and Ukraine, Selin Bucak shares stories of rebellion, fear, and, in some cases, victory. To truly understand what immigrants often have to go through at the hands of governments, legislation, and war, we need to put ourselves into the shoes of the people living in exile.

Selin is a Turkish-British freelance journalist, currently based in Paris. Born in the UK, she grew up in Turkey and has previously lived in New York and London, where she received a master's in Near and Middle East Studies from SOAS. Previously she was the editor of Private Equity News at Dow Jones, and news editor of specialist B2B publication Citywire Wealth Manager. She writes about a variety of topics from finance and sustainability to gender diversity and human rights issues in Turkey. She also runs a weekly newsletter for women who want to learn more about finance and economics.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Bucak, Selin

Leseproben

Chapter 1: Can you feel at home in a foreign country?

A failed abduction and a dissident

Taha Siddiqui was in a taxi heading to the airport in Pakistan’s capital Islamabad just as he had done countless times before travelling to London for work. They were taking the main expressway when a car screeched to a stop in front of the taxi and four men tumbled out, armed with AK-47s. They were there to abduct Taha.

Taha, a prominent, award-winning journalist in Pakistan, worked for a number of different publications including the New York Times, the Guardian and France 24. He was known as a critic of the country’s military, so security agencies kept a close watch on his work, often calling him and harassing him over articles he published.

The men dragged him out of the taxi and beat him, threatening to shoot him multiple times if he didn’t cooperate. Forced into the vehicle as it pulled away, Taha noticed that the door on the other side was unlocked. Seeing his chance, he jumped out while the car was moving. Although he tried to get help from a military vehicle passing by, it was useless – one of the abductors just gestured for the military vehicle to continue driving and they obliged. Taha knew he had to get away and continued to run into oncoming traffic, finally jumping into a taxi that drove him at least a few hundred metres away from his assailants. When he got out, he ran through ditches along the highway until he was out of sight and free to hide.

A few months before the abduction attempt, Taha had complained of being harassed by Pakistan’s security services. While many would have shut up after such an attack, it didn’t deter Taha. ‘The attack happened and that was January 10th, 2018. Right after the attack I started giving interviews, speaking a lot and I got some messages from journalist friends who played on both sides of the fence. They told me, “the military is really angry, even after all this you’re not shutting up”,’ he recalls to me during our interview. He thought that next time, instead of an abduction, they will probably shoot him on the spot. For Taha, there is no question that this was the Pakistani military’s doing.

Ten days after the attempted abduction, the Interior Minister called him to say that the government doesn’t have anything against him. However, he also warned that in the run up to elections, meant to take place in July 2018, an interim government would take power and they would not be able to protect him. Taha had police protection after the attack but that would be pulled back once the interim government took over. When he questioned the Interior Minister, Taha was told, ‘the military has a big problem with you and you should, in my opinion, go quiet and apologise to the military. Write a letter of apology to the army chief.’ Taha wasn’t even sure what he would apologise for even if he wanted to. But the Minister insisted that Taha should issue a blanket apology, just to save himself. In Pakistan, the Interior Minister is at the top of the military food chain. Technically, the Chief of the Armed Services reports to him, but the Minister was telling Taha to apologise to his subordinate.

Taha gave me some insight into how he coped under this pressure. ‘Some of my friends were already telling me it’s better if I take a break because I was under trauma. I had flashback issues, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). I started seeing a therapist, but she told me I should see the good side of the military. I was shocked. I wasn’t there to listen to justifications of the military’s oppressive power. I was having psychological issues with what happened, I was wronged but everyone was telling me that I was wrong.’

Pakistan is one of the deadliest countries in the world for journalists, with three to four murders each year, according to Reporters Without Borders. It ranks 157 out of 180 on the World Press Freedom Index.15 While this was not the first time Taha faced a powerful foe, it was the most extreme. The previous year, the counter-
terrorism wing of the government called Taha in for interrogation due to his work, but Taha bravely took the Federal Investigation Agency to court for harassing him and trying to intimidate him.

The government directly controls the country’s media regulators and with the military’s tight grip over government institutions, any coverage against it is off limits. There are several laws that are used to censor criticism of the government and the armed forces, including the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act passed in 2016 that was used against Taha. As these Acts are vaguely worded, journalists can often find themselves in breach and are easy to target, with the threat of heavy administrative and criminal penalties, including prison sentences.

With this high-profile case, and now the abduction attempt, Taha’s bosses were worried, telling him to back down. Seeing that he wasn’t going to, they requested he take a break, at least until the elections. Taha had several options to escape the threats against his livelihood and his life. He had worked for American, British, and French publications and although the first two were preferable because of the language, the French embassy was the first one to respond and start work on getting him a visa.

‘When I was attacked, they took my passport so I had to get a new one. The government helped me. But publicly they were saying they had nothing to do with me. Pakistan is very dysfunctional like that. One end of the government will help you and the other will screw you. I was getting police protection while the military was trying to kill me,’ he explained.

The French embassy said the visa would take around five to seven days, but it was successfully processed quickly, allowing Taha to plan accordingly.

‘I was really paranoid thinking they will come and kill me. At the time, anyone who wanted to talk about the media under suppression was talking to me. I was one of the most vocal people after the attack,’ he said. ‘Most go quiet. Although not everyone has a choice to leave. I was privileged to have that choice.’

Taha didn’t tell anyone that he was going to leave. He asked his partner if she would go with him, and she agreed. Their son was just over four years old at the time. In that week, while waiting for the visas, they had to get rid of their belongings and figure out what to do with their house. They gave most of their furniture to another journalist who had just moved to the country.

‘Basically, I had to throw things away, leave stuff, memories and things. A week ago, we never would have thought that we would want to leave, and we were now leaving. We disposed of what we had, we had cars we had to sell off. My son was in school, and it was the middle of the school year. I talked to him about it and he started crying.’ He was understandably sad about leaving behind his friends and eventually he asked if he could at least take his toys with him – which is how they ended up with a suitcase full of toys when they finally left Pakistan.

With the recent abduction attempt still haunting Taha, travelling to the airport was triggering. They were under police protection, but Taha felt he couldn’t trust them fully.

‘The police were travelling with us as well going to the airport. I was under severe trauma from the last time. There was a police car in the front and back. Until we reached the airport, I told the policemen I’m going to Karachi. When I made them stop at the international side they said, “this is international departures”. I just smiled but didn’t say anything to them. I went to Qatar airlines, got a flight to Paris and arrived the night of 13th of February, 2018.’

Getting out of Pakistan was one thing, but resettling in Paris and living abroad was something else. The threats against him didn’t stop and he was still very much afraid. At least 42 journalists have been killed in Pakistan in the last four years16 but the displaced haven’t always been protected from their original threats, either. In 2020 Sajid Hussein, Pakistani journalist and the founder and chief editor of the online news site, the Balochistan Times, who had been living in exile in Sweden was found dead in a river. In October 2022, Pakistani journalist, writer, and television news anchor Arshad Sharif, another critic of the army, was shot dead in Kenya.

Several months after Taha had arrived in France he was invited to a conference in the US as a speaker. At this time, Pakistan’s elections had taken place and Imran Khan was elected Prime Minister. With the interim government gone, Taha was mulling over whether it was safe to go back. His answer came when he arrived in the US and received a call from the FBI, asking to meet. They told Taha that his name was on a kill list that they intercepted, mentioned in communications from Pakistan following the elections. If he went back to Pakistan, in his mind, it was certain that he would be killed. If he went to any country that had friendly relations with Pakistan, he could be extradited. This was around the same time that Jamal Khashoggi, Saudi dissident journalist, was assassinated by agents of the Saudi government at the country’s consulate in Istanbul. FBI agents warned Taha that this could embolden other states to take similar actions.

When he returned to France, French intelligence agencies confirmed the FBI’s information. Taha was informed his parents also got a visit back home in Pakistan telling them that Taha...