Minding the minders

Minders are a journalist’s hazard in many countries

“Don’t worry, we are here not to spy on you ( jasoosi), but to protect you ( hifaazat),” said the burly man unconvincingly. He had been following our team on foot all around Rawalpindi on our first day in Pakistan, where we were covering elections in 1997. Each time we would stop to ask questions about how people planned to vote, he would pull them aside, get their names and numbers, and interrogate them. His menacing presence made us uncomfortable and made it difficult to get anyone to speak freely to us on camera. As a result, we were spending more time trying to dodge him than on getting the story itself, until I decided to confront him directly, and he gave this stock reply.

Minders are a journalist’s hazard in many countries (including India, as many foreign journalists have told me). They are the shadows that tail you, report on you while you report on the situation, and try to erase any negative coverage of their governments. In fact, their presence alone indicates that something is already wrong. Over the years, I have learned to deal with the practice, use the minder for directions, and even had some ridiculous moments. Once, a minder stormed into our hotel and roughed up our driver to find out where we had gone, as he had fallen asleep and missed us leave. We had actually gone to interview the President of the country. Our hapless tail was pulled up after the presidential security realised that we had arrived without him.

In some states, they take no chances. In Turkmenistan, we were informed upon arrival that we had a “taxi” assigned to us that would remain with us for the entire visit. Ashgabatbased expatriates told me that they were not allowed to leave their hotels after dark, make friends with locals, or even carpool with others — each foreigner could only travel in their assigned car, whose driver would dutifully report on their movements.

In others, they try to control how you file your copy as well. In Libya, just before the NATO invasion in 2011, Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi cut off the Internet in all of Tripoli, except one hotel owned by him, to ensure that all journalists in the city had to come to that hotel to send out their stories. This meant that the state could intercept every mail that went out, although the strict control didn’t really help the regime in the end.

In China, the systems watch much more than the mobiles and computers. In Xinjiang several years ago, special ‘biometric’ barriers would stop pedestrians from even crossing the road unless they went through the scanner. An Afghan colleague and I once found ourselves lost. When we attempted to walk through one of those barriers, we were immediately taken to the local police station and detained, until one of our minders, who was in charge of our delegation, came and collected us, rather cross with us for having strayed away from their charge.

Arriving in Moscow last week, I was struck by how little control there was on journalists compared to the past. While there is a proliferation of Rosgvardia or National Guard police at most crowded squares, they did not interfere even when I stopped to ask locals about the war in Ukraine. Friendly officials do, however, warn that it is better not to talk about opposition leaders with locals, or be seen too close to memorials for those who have been killed in recent years. With many “western” Internet and social media apps unworkable without a VPN (Virtual Private Network), it is necessary for journalists to download Russian apps to navigate the city, hail a cab, or message a contact. Internet surveillance has now put the more labourintensive minders of the past out of commission; today, even the biggest “liberal” democracies track journalists with technological advances. The ‘Pegasus’ revelations that the Government of India was targeting media in the country showed just how widespread such unseen surveillance is.

Above all, what a journalist needs to watch out for is not the visible presence of those seeking to stifle or soften a story or a source, but for the impact of their intimidation on journalists themselves. The most effective form of censorship is, after all, when the media censors itself.