Pakistan deported U.S. journalist, group says

An American scholar and freelance journalist who recently wrote about the growing strength of Taliban militants in Pakistan has been expelled, a media rights group said Saturday.

The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists expressed concern that the deportation of Nicholas Schmidle, who has written recently for the New York Times Magazine and the online magazine Slate, could presage heavier pressure on foreign journalists working in Pakistan.

International media watchdog groups have long complained of intimidation and threats against Pakistani journalists, particularly during the recent months of political turmoil, but overt moves against foreign reporters have been relatively rare.

Two reporters for Britain’s Daily Telegraph were ordered out of the country in November after the newspaper ran an editorial that used an expletive to refer to President Pervez Musharraf after he declared emergency rule, under which he suspended the constitution and arrested thousands of opponents.

Pakistan’s Information Ministry denied that Schmidle had been ordered to leave the country.

“He completed his work and he has voluntarily gone,” Information Minister Nisar Memon said. “There has been no deportation order.”

But the Committee to Protect Journalists said Schmidle, a U.S. citizen who had been living in Pakistan for 16 months under a fellowship from the Washington-based Institute of Current World Affairs, left the country late last week after receiving a deportation order.

The group quoted him as saying he was “extremely disappointed at being asked to leave Pakistan.”

Schmidle’s expulsion came less than a week after an article titled “Next-Gen Taliban” appeared in the New York Times Magazine. The Jan. 6 story detailed encounters with Islamic insurgents in militant strongholds, including the southwestern city of Quetta and the Swat Valley in northwest Pakistan, where troops have been battling followers of a pro-Taliban cleric.

Schmidle was in Pakistan on a visa issued in connection with his scholarly research rather than a journalistic visa, Pakistani authorities said.

The U.S. Embassy said it was aware of the case and was looking into the circumstances.

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laura.king@latimes.com