Tribal journalist receives threatening phone calls

By Ashrafuddin Pirzada
LANDIKOTAL: A journalist affiliated with Landikotal press club in Khyber tribal district received threatening phone calls after he uploaded Pashtoon Tahafuz Movement(PTM) leader and parliamentarian Ali Wazir speech video on his social media wall.

speaking with fellow journalists here on 9Saturday Mehrab Shah Afridi said that he covered a set-in where MNA Ali Wazir spoke to a crowd gathered against the killing of a Landikotal resident.

Afridi said as he uploaded the video speech of Ali Wazir, who is an active PTM leader, he received a first phone call from Malaysia, warning him of dire consequences.
“As a phone number(0060187907124)from Malaysia appeared on his cell phone screen he picked up it and without saying other things he told me why I uploaded Ali Wazir’s video on my social media wall”, said Mehrab. He added that without his explanation the unknown person used harsh and abusive language in the video he uploaded.
The Landikotal-based journalist, working with print, radio and online media outlets, said the phone caller from Malaysia told him that the countdown had started. He said that in one day he received five phone calls because he cut off several times the phone calls as he did not want to hear abusive language from the person he did not identify himself with.

Mehrab said the caller told him he was calling from Malaysia and soon he would reach out to him to assassinate him, adding that was why he uploaded MNA Ali Wazir’s speech on his page which was speaking to the protest sit-in in Landikotal.

Fellow journalists from tribal districts and
Freedom Network demands protection for Mehrab Shah Afridi. They urged the Malaysian embassy in Islamabad and the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government to track down the caller and hand him to justice for threatening the tribal journalist.

Mehrab Shah Afridi has registered a First Information Report(FIR) at Landikotal police station.