Pakistani media to experience increase in violence, repression in 2024

Malik Zafar Iqbal Naich was delivering copies of the newspaper he works for last week when gunmen on a motorcycle shot the journalist dead.

Naich, a 45-year-old reporter and news agent for Daily Khabran, became the 12th journalist killed in a deadly year for Pakistan’s media industry.

Police are investigating the case in the central-eastern Punjab province and have not yet identified a motive. However, the journalist’s employer suspected that it might be related to his reporting.

“We demand that the Pakistani authorities ensure justice for the bereaved family,” Blaise Lempen, president of the Press Symbol campaign, said in a statement.

The Geneva-based media protection and rights body says the killings in Pakistan come amid criticism over the lack of justice or punishment for killings of journalists.

The Committee to Protect Journalists, or CPJ, has also flagged the failure to ensure accountability. It said Pakistani authorities should implement immediate measures to stop attacks on the media.

“The increase in violence is closely related to the political turmoil and security situation in the country, but what is more worrying is that the Pakistani government is turning a blind eye to the sharp increase in journalist killings,” said CPJ Asia Program Coordinator Beh Lih Yee. VOA.

“This failure to end impunity is sending a chilling message to newsrooms across the country that such heinous acts are tolerated in Pakistan,” he said via email.

As well as violence, journalists are at risk of arrest or threats if they cover issues deemed critical or sensitive by authorities, including the crackdown on anti-government protesters.

Pakistan’s information minister, Ataullah Tarar, told VOA he would respond to a request for comment but at the time of publication, no response had been received.

Tarar said in September that the government was working with provincial authorities to address the challenges faced by journalists.

‘Impunity has taken deep roots’

The Islamabad-based Freedom Network, an advocate of press freedom, has determined that at least half of the journalists killed this year were targeted for their work.

“There is more than one factor contributing to the physical elimination of journalists,” said Iqbal Khattak, executive director of the nonprofit network. He said that till date no one has been held responsible for the murder of journalists.

“I think the deeply entrenched motivation for crimes against journalists and media organizations is emboldening press freedom predators to continue these attacks,” Khattak told VOA.

Aamir Zia, a political talk show host, said that journalists face threats from multiple fronts, including state actors, political party supporters, religious and communal groups, and terrorists.

“In rural areas, especially in the southern province of Sindh, feudal lords – many of whom are linked to the provincial ruling party – are responsible for the killing and torture of journalists,” Zia said.

The Sindh government denies the allegations. Last month it had announced the establishment of a commission to protect journalists. The panel will provide legal assistance, arrange training and develop security policies.

However, critics doubt the effectiveness of the commission.

Most of the media freedom violations documented by the Freedom Network in 2024 were in Sindh, with Punjab and Islamabad being the second and third most affected regions, respectively.

But Zia said that officials alone are not responsible for the safety of the media.

“Pakistani media organizations hardly take the safety of journalists seriously. There is hardly any training, and a large number of media persons also lack proper safety gear to cover violence and terrorist incidents,” he said.

CPJ notes that various parties – from police to tribal chiefs – often pressure relatives, especially those in rural areas, to abandon efforts to ensure justice, in some cases paying families in exchange for silence. Does matter.

legal threats

The watchdog has also long criticized Pakistan for its poor media freedom environment, including laws targeting the media, arrests, allegations of torture and harassment.

Last month, one journalist was briefly detained and another called for questioning due to his coverage of the protests.

Harmeet Singh, a journalist from the country’s minority Sikh community, has been summoned to appear for questioning by the federal investigation agency Cyber ​​Crime Center next week. Such TV anchors are accused of propagating “misleading, fabricated and baseless campaigns against Pakistan’s state institutions and security agencies”.

The case stems from Singh’s coverage of an opposition protest march organized by jailed former prime minister Imran Khan’s party Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, or PTI, in Islamabad on November 26.

According to local and foreign media, Pakistani security forces used tear gas, rubber bullets and live ammunition on the protesters.

PTI reported at least 12 deaths and said many were still unaccounted for. The government denied any casualties from the shooting, saying the security forces were not armed with “lethal” weapons.

CPJ’s Beh said, “The targeting of Singh is part of a broader pattern of intimidation of journalists in Pakistan.” He said a second journalist – Matiullah Jan – had been arrested on terrorism charges for his coverage of the same protests.

Hours before he was detained in a hospital last month, Jaan had said on his TV show that security forces had used firearms to disperse protesters. He cited figures from hospital sources and accused the government of pressuring hospital staff not to reveal details to the media.

“The truth is always the first casualty of war,” Jahn told VOA, believing that his arrest was meant to deter journalists from investigating the protests.

The reporter, who runs a YouTube channel with nearly 400,000 subscribers, said, “[Authorities] “All they care about is some temporary arrangement to prevent journalists from getting their work done, getting their work done and getting the facts out, so that is their ultimate success.”

Arrests and violence contribute to Pakistan’s low ranking in terms of media freedom. The country ranks 152nd out of 180 in the Press Freedom Index, where 1 indicates the best media environment. And it appears each year on the CPJ Impunity Index which looks at countries where justice for murdered journalists remains elusive.

In the latest index published in October. 30, Pakistan was ranked 12th among the countries that failed to catch the killers in media cases.