Caught face to face in the melee, I looked at him and smiled nervously. Holding a huge stick, he smiled back and took aim at my head. I ducked and ran. The stick hit me in the shoulder, leaving me wincing with pain.

Standing at a safe distance, I picked up a stone and threw it at him. He laughed, holding his ground, whilst I ran to rejoin my colleagues, several dozen journalists standing outside the parliament building in Islamabad.

He had come with a group of militants -- students from Muslim religious schools -- to protest against a blasphemous article published by a Pakistani newspaper.

They blocked the road for an hour or so, threw some stones at policemen, who ignored them, chased a few cars and dispersed.

Although protesting against the press, they did not attack the journalists knowing that they needed them to cover their protest.

This is how Pakistan used to be. In the 1970's we often had such encounters with policemen, political activists or religious extremists. But nobody ever held a

personal grudge against the journalists. It was assumed, and accepted, that journalists will write whatever they write. If you had a complaint, you wrote a rejoinder that was also published, and the matter was settled. If you were really upset, you could grab a daring journalist straying too far from his flock, give him (not her because women were spared physical violence) a few blows and let him go.

People did not go about kidnapping or killing journalists. This began to change after 1979, during the 20 years of civil war in Afghanistan. Both the then-Soviet Union and the United States flooded our central Asian neighbor with weapons. Although meant for the war there, a lot of sophisticated military hardware ended up in the hands of religious and ethnic fanatics in Pakistan.

Many young zealots went to Afghanistan to fight "the holy war" and returned home, fully armed and trained, ready to take on anyone who dared challenge them.

They attacked newspaper offices, damaged their machines, burned newspapers, and beat journalists -- but still refrained from killing them in cold blood.

The tragic death of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl has raised the stakes. Journalists in Pakistan can no longer feel safe. It is the first murder of its kind there but is unlikely to be the last.

The extremists, having discovered how easy it was to kidnap and kill a bureau chief of a powerful international newspaper like the Wall Street Journal, will not hesitate to abduct others. And who would prevent them from killing journalists to settle scores?

A local reporter, kidnapped or killed in Karachi, Islamabad or Peshawar, will not attract the media spotlight that fell on Pearl. Like a newspaper story, forgotten within 24 hours, the journalist will also leave the stage quietly. There will be no international manhunt for their captors. Indeed, few will even bother to find out what happened to him or her.

In a society where few understand the importance of discourse or dissent, who will speak for the journalists? Not the clerks of the information ministry, formed supposedly to assist the press but in reality to obstruct and control it at every turn.

I still remember my encounter with one such clerk few years ago. "This letter? No, I cannot send it to my superior. It is improper," he said.

"What is improper about it?" I asked him.

"You say, 'Dear sir', and then you go straight to what you want. It is not how you write a letter to a senior official. I will tell you how to write," he said.

He started dictating to me: "With all due respect and humble submission, I beg to state that..." I had to write whatever he wanted because I knew he would never pass the letter on to his superior if I did not follow his advice. It is this culture that journalists in Pakistan have been resisting for more than half a century, with some success.

We all have participated in countless rallies and protest marches, chanting, "We want freedom. Free the press." I remember the last such rally I participated in before leaving the country two years ago. It was a protest against the government's attempt to gag a section of the press.

I looked out at the crowd as they marched towards Islamabad's parliament square. There were several hundred journalists -- almost two-thirds of the city's "pen

tribe."

In a country where people still insist formal letters should sign off "your most obedient servant," few understand the importance of protest. But journalists are a tough lot. They never give up.



The struggle for press freedom in Pakistan started soon after its independence in 1947. Generations have come and gone. It seems like only yesterday that we used to march down Islamabad's streets chanting slogans against the then-dictator, Gen. Zia ul Haq, and his junta.

A growing resentment against his rule forced him to give limited freedom to the press in 1985. Slowly but steadily, journalists gained more freedom. Weak governments and differences within the country's ruling elite made the task easier. The rulers needed a free press to attack one another, so the press became almost as free as it could be in a developing country.

Successive governments have tried to slip the muzzle back on, but failed. They have never had enough votes in parliament to revive the censorship laws.

So the press in Pakistan is free. It has been free for more than 15 years now. But it is not strong enough to fight against kidnappers, terrorists and cutthroats who lurk in the dark.

The struggle continues. A new generation has joined their gray-haired elders in chanting, "Down with dictators. Long live democracy!" But how long will they chant before they are beheaded?