Media freedom declines due to censorship, threats: report
Ikram Junaidi
Journalists’ arrests raise concerns over press freedom
“The fact that courts have used restrictive interpretations on FOE laws to shut down criticism of courts erodes their credibility to uphold it against other organs of the state. There is a fundamental mistrust of free speech in our post-colonial state structure, where the presumption is against free speech, and a citizen has to prove an exception: as opposed to it being the other way around,” Mr Saroop Ijaz of the Human Rights Watch is quoted as saying in the report.
Concerns
Former Senator Farhatullah Babar, also interviewed and quoted in the report, said, “Digital journalism in Pakistan is facing several challenges, including no legislation in some critical areas, faulty legislation where legislation exists and finally non-implementation of the provisions of the existing law.”
Cases of arrests of journalists, including prominent names such as Imran Riaz Khan and Khalid Jamil, involving the FIA raised concerns about press freedom, transparency, and due process, the report noted.
The report also uncovered a significant number of content removal requests from the Pakistani government to big tech platforms such as Google, Meta, TikTok, and X (formerly Twitter).
For example, between January 2021 to June 2022, Meta restricted access to 12,001 items in Pakistan over PTA complaints for allegedly violating local laws.
The report cited international digital rights organisation AccessNow to show that between 2022 and 2023 there were six internet/network shutdowns across the country, as per directives from the government.
Published in Dawn, January 23rd, 2024
DAWN
Published January 23, 2024
ISLAMABAD: The relationship between the state and media deteriorated during the past two years due to growing instances of censorship, violence against journalists and government disdain for critism, according to a report.
The report titled ‘Under Siege: Legislative, Judicial and Executive Actions Stifling Freedom of Expression and Right to Information’ was published by the Institute of Research, Advocacy and Development (IRADA) as part of its annual state of digital journalism series.
“This year’s report examines key legislative developments in Pakistan during the critical year of 2023, shedding light on recent acts impacting freedom of expression, access to information and the digital media landscape,” Muhammad Aftab Alam, the executive director of IRADA said.
The report investigated the effects of judicial decisions on the overall freedom of expression, indicating nuances in court decisions that both protect and impose restrictions.
ISLAMABAD: The relationship between the state and media deteriorated during the past two years due to growing instances of censorship, violence against journalists and government disdain for critism, according to a report.
The report titled ‘Under Siege: Legislative, Judicial and Executive Actions Stifling Freedom of Expression and Right to Information’ was published by the Institute of Research, Advocacy and Development (IRADA) as part of its annual state of digital journalism series.
“This year’s report examines key legislative developments in Pakistan during the critical year of 2023, shedding light on recent acts impacting freedom of expression, access to information and the digital media landscape,” Muhammad Aftab Alam, the executive director of IRADA said.
The report investigated the effects of judicial decisions on the overall freedom of expression, indicating nuances in court decisions that both protect and impose restrictions.
Journalists’ arrests raise concerns over press freedom
“The fact that courts have used restrictive interpretations on FOE laws to shut down criticism of courts erodes their credibility to uphold it against other organs of the state. There is a fundamental mistrust of free speech in our post-colonial state structure, where the presumption is against free speech, and a citizen has to prove an exception: as opposed to it being the other way around,” Mr Saroop Ijaz of the Human Rights Watch is quoted as saying in the report.
Concerns
Former Senator Farhatullah Babar, also interviewed and quoted in the report, said, “Digital journalism in Pakistan is facing several challenges, including no legislation in some critical areas, faulty legislation where legislation exists and finally non-implementation of the provisions of the existing law.”
Cases of arrests of journalists, including prominent names such as Imran Riaz Khan and Khalid Jamil, involving the FIA raised concerns about press freedom, transparency, and due process, the report noted.
The report also uncovered a significant number of content removal requests from the Pakistani government to big tech platforms such as Google, Meta, TikTok, and X (formerly Twitter).
For example, between January 2021 to June 2022, Meta restricted access to 12,001 items in Pakistan over PTA complaints for allegedly violating local laws.
The report cited international digital rights organisation AccessNow to show that between 2022 and 2023 there were six internet/network shutdowns across the country, as per directives from the government.
Published in Dawn, January 23rd, 2024
Our ‘free’ media
DAWN
Editorial Published January 23, 2024
CARETAKER Prime Minister Anwaar-ul-Haq Kakar told a CNBC interviewer during his recent trip to Davos that the media in Pakistan was “freer than in the West”, while arguing that Western media operates under far more regulations compared to the media in Pakistan.
Mr Kakar’s words brought to mind a similar statement made by former prime minister Imran Khan during his tenure, when he had made the same appraisal of press freedoms in Pakistan in response to a probing question by a foreign interviewer.
The answer had been as scandalising to practising journalists then as it is now. Taken without context, their words seemed to suggest that the relative lack of formal regulatory oversight gives Pakistani media some sort of qualitative edge. Anyone familiar with the country and its media landscape knows that this is clearly not the case.
The truth is that whenever the Pakistani media and working journalists have attempted to assert their freedoms in recent years, they have invariably been made to pay a very heavy price for it.
Starting from the days when Nawaz Sharif last fell out of favour with the establishment, powerful operators acting behind the scenes have used progressively coercive means to whip the media into lining up with their narratives. This publication is among those that were made to suffer the worst of such practices.
So weary have media practitioners now become of the sword constantly hanging above their necks that various journalists’ and media workers’ representative bodies resolved this past weekend to begin pushing back against it.
The Coalition for Free Media, as it is being called, is a welcome effort that had been long awaited. It is hoped it will be able to wrest back a modicum of the independence Pakistani media has been gradually deprived of over the last decade.
From high-profile abductions that have gone unquestioned to unresolved murders of journalists, the Pakistani media fraternity has suffered much in silence, while being forced to cede more and more control over editorial decision-making to unaccountable individuals.
Press ‘advisories’, a relic of the Zia era, now seem to be issued every week. Both overt and veiled threats are issued periodically, ensuring that few dare question the state’s diktats.
There is a growing realisation that protecting press freedoms is no longer a question of self-preservation or interest: it is clear that the Fourth Estate cannot continue to watch out for the public interest and fulfil its duty to speak truth to power if it allows itself to continue to be divided and exploited by a predatory state.
In this suffocating environment, more and more journalists and media practitioners are realising that their safety is in presenting a united front. More power to those leading the change.
Published in Dawn, January 23rd, 2024
Editorial Published January 23, 2024
CARETAKER Prime Minister Anwaar-ul-Haq Kakar told a CNBC interviewer during his recent trip to Davos that the media in Pakistan was “freer than in the West”, while arguing that Western media operates under far more regulations compared to the media in Pakistan.
Mr Kakar’s words brought to mind a similar statement made by former prime minister Imran Khan during his tenure, when he had made the same appraisal of press freedoms in Pakistan in response to a probing question by a foreign interviewer.
The answer had been as scandalising to practising journalists then as it is now. Taken without context, their words seemed to suggest that the relative lack of formal regulatory oversight gives Pakistani media some sort of qualitative edge. Anyone familiar with the country and its media landscape knows that this is clearly not the case.
The truth is that whenever the Pakistani media and working journalists have attempted to assert their freedoms in recent years, they have invariably been made to pay a very heavy price for it.
Starting from the days when Nawaz Sharif last fell out of favour with the establishment, powerful operators acting behind the scenes have used progressively coercive means to whip the media into lining up with their narratives. This publication is among those that were made to suffer the worst of such practices.
So weary have media practitioners now become of the sword constantly hanging above their necks that various journalists’ and media workers’ representative bodies resolved this past weekend to begin pushing back against it.
The Coalition for Free Media, as it is being called, is a welcome effort that had been long awaited. It is hoped it will be able to wrest back a modicum of the independence Pakistani media has been gradually deprived of over the last decade.
From high-profile abductions that have gone unquestioned to unresolved murders of journalists, the Pakistani media fraternity has suffered much in silence, while being forced to cede more and more control over editorial decision-making to unaccountable individuals.
Press ‘advisories’, a relic of the Zia era, now seem to be issued every week. Both overt and veiled threats are issued periodically, ensuring that few dare question the state’s diktats.
There is a growing realisation that protecting press freedoms is no longer a question of self-preservation or interest: it is clear that the Fourth Estate cannot continue to watch out for the public interest and fulfil its duty to speak truth to power if it allows itself to continue to be divided and exploited by a predatory state.
In this suffocating environment, more and more journalists and media practitioners are realising that their safety is in presenting a united front. More power to those leading the change.
Published in Dawn, January 23rd, 2024
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