Threats, attacks on journalists in Pakistan rise by over 60 percent – report

ISLAMABAD: Incidents of press freedom violations, which include threats, arrests and attacks against journalists in Pakistan, saw a 63 percent increase over the past eleven months, a report by the media watchdog Freedom Network said on Monday. 

Pakistan is counted among the world’s most dangerous countries for journalists. According to a report by Reporters Without Borders (RSF) last year, 93 journalists have been killed in the South Asian country over the past 20 years. 

Incidents of arrests, media censorship, online abuse and physical attacks against journalists are common in Pakistan. In October last year, prominent TV anchor Arshad Sharif, who was also a harsh critic of Pakistan’s government and military, was shot dead by Kenyan police in Nairobi. While Kenyan police said the journalist— who had fled Pakistan citing threats to his life– had been killed in a case of mistaken identity, many have raised suspicions over what they call Sharif’s alleged murder. 

The Freedom Network released its annual ‘Pakistan Press Freedom Report’ on Sunday, which said mentioned that press freedom violations in Pakistan, from May 2022 to March 2023, rose by over 60 percent. 

“The report, which is released in connection with the World Press Freedom Day marked globally on May 3 every year, notes that the country’s media environment became riskier and more violent in recent months,” the Freedom Network said in a press release. “The data shows that press freedom violations jumped to 140 in 2022-23 from 86 in 2021-22, indicating an annual increase of around 63 percent.”

Iqbal Khattak, executive director of the Freedom Network, said the escalation in violence against journalists in Pakistan is “disturbing and demands urgent attention.”

“Attacks on independent journalism block access to essential information, which is especially damaging during the ongoing political and economic crises when the public needs reliable news to understand the issues and respond to them,” Khattak said.

As per the report, an average of around 13 cases of press freedom violations a month in 2022-23 took place in Pakistan or at least one violation every three days, compared to one every five days in 2021-22.

“The main types of violations against the journalists were 51 cases (36 percent) of assault, 21 cases (15 percent) of attacks that resulted in damage to equipment, homes of journalists or offices of news organizations, and 14 cases (10 percent) of offline or online threats, including seven death threats,” the report mentioned. 

It identified Islamabad as the “riskiest” region for journalists in Pakistan, adding that 40 percent of the violations (56 out of total 140 cases) were recorded there. Punjab was second worst with 25 percent of the violations (35 cases) and Sindh a close third at 23 percent (32 cases) as per the report. 

TV was the largest victim medium with at least 97 (69 percent) of the 140 cases against its practitioners, while the report stated that at least eight cases of women media professionals, including one transgender woman journalist, being targeted were reported during the past 11 months.

 The report also identified political parties as the biggest single-source threat actor identified by victims or their families in 21 percent of the cases. 

“Equally troublingly, state functionaries were a close second, with suspected involvement in 19 percent of the total cases. The remaining two significant threat actors were multisource categories,” the report said. 

“These were the miscellaneous ‘Others’ (including private individuals etc.) with 27 percent cases attributed to them and the multisource ‘Unknown’ with 24 percent case.”