Najam Sethi is no stranger to official harassment and death threats. Since the 1970s, the prominent Pakistani journalist has been charged with treason three times. He has been held incommunicado and even tortured. In more recent years, his name has appeared on a series of hit lists drawn up by militants enraged by his outspoken opposition to religious militancy. For the past two years, Sethi and his family have been forced to live under police protection.
The hostile attention has not abandoned him. Since the May 2 U.S. raid that killed Osama bin Laden, Sethi and other leading Pakistani journalists have come under intense pressure from the ISI, the country’s most powerful intelligence agency. With top spies having made their fury plain in private, the journalists now face a public campaign of intimidation bent on silencing them and holding them up as traitors.
