EDITORIAL : THE HINDU, INDIA

The FIFA family

A fourth four-year term for 75-year-old Sepp Blatter as president of FIFA, Federation Internationale de Football Association, was not only a vote for continuity. It was also a mandate for reform of world football's governing body. The election at the 61st congress of FIFA in Zurich took place in difficult, unpleasant circumstances with the only other candidate, Asian Football Confederation president Mohamed bin Hammam of Qatar, withdrawing from the race after he was suspended on charges of attempting to bribe member associations to back him. But with Mr. Blatter overcoming an inane bid by the English Football Association to postpone the election on the ground it was a one-horse race, and obtaining the support of an overwhelming majority for his re-election, the focus is now again on the tasks and challenges ahead. England's FA found support back home among British politicians, the media, and the fans — but not in Zurich where it mattered. The seasoned Mr. Blatter knew better than to gloat over his victory. After the election, he spoke of cleaning up administration and promised to steer the ship “back onto the right course in clear, transparent waters.” He pushed for a strengthened FIFA Ethics Committee whose members will now be chosen by the whole congress. With allegations over the bribery bid being met with counter-allegations, the revamped Ethics Committee could infuse greater confidence in the world body's efforts to deal with corruption and malpractice. Mr. Blatter also announced the formation of a high-powered corporate governance and compliance committee, which will be headed by no less than Henry Kissinger. If necessary, an extraordinary congress will be convened to review the findings of the committee and “restore FIFA's credibility.”

One of Mr. Blatter's stand-out achievements, after he took over from Joao Havelange in 1998, is the successful hosting of the World Cup outside of Europe and the Americas. After the first World Cup in Asia (co-hosted by South Korea and Japan in 2002), South Africa 2010 under his presidency was a huge success, not only in terms of the football on display, but also in terms of the organisation of the event. To Mr. Blatter goes the credit of expanding the World Cup to include 32 teams (from 24), and giving a chance to more teams from different continents to compete in the premier event. Thus it was hardly surprising that among the first proposals he got adopted by the congress on his re-election was a radical change in rules, which now give each of the organisation's 208 members a vote in choosing the World Cup host. Mr. Blatter deserves and needs all the support he can get in the efforts to reform FIFA and lead the world's best-loved game to new heights.

A journalist is silenced

The killing of Syed Saleem Shahzad is brutal confirmation that Pakistan is the world's most hazardous place for journalists. According to the United States-based Committee to Protect Journalists, in the nine years since the abduction and murder of the Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, 32 media professionals have met a violent end, 17 of them in targeted attacks for clear work-related motives. International pressure on Pakistan forced the pace in the investigation of the Pearl case in 2002. But in none of the other murders has anyone been brought to book. It was in this atmosphere of impunity that Shahzad went missing from a well-secured neighbourhood of Islamabad. Two days later, his body, bearing torture marks, surfaced 150 km away. In any conflict, the main threat to journalists is from armed actors, state and non-state. The situation in Pakistan is all the more dangerous given the blurred lines, and linkages, between the two. If the Inter-Services Intelligence is being seen as Suspect No. 1 in this case, it is not without reason. Eight months ago, the journalist who wrote about al-Qaeda and Taliban was summoned to the ISI headquarters for an interview — after he reported that Pakistan had released the Afghan Taliban commander Mullah Baradar, arrested earlier in 2010, to take part in talks. Shahzad notified friends about that meeting, detailing it in an email that he wanted publicised if anything untoward happened to him; he also confided that he had received death threats from ISI officials thrice in the last five years. It is significant that he went missing days after he reported that the Mehran Base attack was carried out in retaliation for a Pakistan Navy crackdown on al-Qaeda sympathisers in its ranks. There have been suggestions that Shahzad, the author of a new book on al-Qaeda, knew details of the Pakistani network that supported Osama bin Laden while he sheltered in Abbottabad.

Pakistan's news media naturally see the Shahzad killing as an unambiguous attempt to intimidate them and silence dissent. The May 1 stealth attack by the U.S. to eliminate bin Laden, and the Mehran attack in which the Navy was savaged by home-grown terrorists, have seen the media shed their usual reluctance to challenge the military and the ISI. It should be natural for an investigation into Shahzad's killing to start with the ISI officials who interviewed him in October 2010. The Pakistani media community must insist on this in order to fix accountability for the journalist's killing. Else the enquiry ordered by Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani will go the way of other such investigations, and the impunity will continue unchecked.