ON Jan 19, Pakistan closed the Islamabad of fice of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty`s (RFE/RL)Pashto-language service, Radio Mashaal. The decision has been presented as a response to national security concerns, but it is self-defeating.

Radio Mashaal, together with its parent company RFE/R L, serves no foreign intelligence agency, and US law protects its editorial independence. Its reporters are Pakistani citizens who live and raise their f amilies in the communities they report about. In contrast to Taliban radio, Radio Mashaal, working in Pashto, provides verifiable news, open debate and responsible discussion. It is a platform for diverse points of view, consistently including comments f rom conservative, liberal and secular analysts, religious leaders, and former military of ficers in its reporting on security and political issues.

It is a voice for local communities, reporting on water quality, health-care f acilities, the polio vaccination campaign, girls` education, schooling, infrastructure, agriculture, and legal reform in the tribal areas. Its outlook is positive. It is an ally in the war against terrorism, spreading hope, nothate.

Its openness has also made it a target of the region`s militant groups. In 2011, Taliban chief Hakimullah Mehsud threatened Mashaal reporters in a video message, warning `we will soon be coming af ter them.` The Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (T TP) then issued a written f atwa against Radio Mashaal.

Prominent Pakistani political leaders and journalists have decried the ISI ban as an assault on basic f reedoms. For example, Professor Ibrahim Khan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa chief of the Jamaat-i-Islami, opposed the ban saying, `Closing the radio, television or newspaper is not the right step...We condemn the one-sided move by providing no opportunity to the other party to present its clarification...Talk to the [Radio Mashaal leadership] and act only when they [the government] proved the allegation against them.

By seeking to restrict Mashaal`s moderating influence in the tribal areas` volatile landscape, the ISI order undercuts its own mandate to promote Pakistan`s security and the public interest.

Thomas Kent Media executive US