Reporters Without Borders (or Reporters Sans Frontiers) condemned on Monday an assault on a journalist working for a Pakistani newspaper in Canada, urging Ontario authorities to quickly punish those behind the attack. According to an RSF report, Jawaad Faizi, working for Urdu weekly ‘The Pakistan Post’ in Mississauga, Ontario Canada, was thrashed by two men. The attackers warned him of more violence if did not stop writing “against Islam”. His family also suffered harassment. The incident took place on April 17 when Faizi was leaving the home of his Editor Amir Arain. He was getting in a car when one of the attackers smashed the car windscreen and beat him up with a cricket bat.
They warned Faizi of more violence if he continued criticising an Islamic-aid organisation, Idara Minhajul Quran. Headquartered in Lahore, the organisation has offices in 17 countries and a representative in Toronto.
Faizi, who sustained an injury to his arm, told RSF, a Paris-based global press freedom organisation, that he was sure that Idara Minhajul Quran was behind the reprisals against him.
A day after the assault took place, he said he received a call from the administration of the school attended by his three children, asking him to keep them at home. He said he was worried for his family.
The evening before the attack, Faizi and his editor had told police that they had received threatening phone calls.
Arain had already received threats in December 2004, when he exposed the alleged involvement of some leading members of the Pakistani community in Canada in a drug case.