In Pakistan, the journalism profession has turned into a high-stakes gamble, marked by escalating threats that stifle free speech. Saturday’s report from Journalism Pakistan exposes how PECA enforces harsh penalties on digital reporting, defamation lawsuits proliferate from influential figures, and security forces exert unrelenting pressure, collectively choking press freedom.
Reporters tackling demonstrations, political upheavals, and contentious local issues suffer from intimidation to brutal attacks. Unions report frequent detentions during raids, followed by opaque probes that foster a sense of untouchability among perpetrators.
Female reporters endure heightened cyber abuse—trolls, menacing messages, and credibility assaults—particularly on sensitive topics. The nation’s divided politics intensifies this, turning online platforms into weapons.
Operating in a chokehold of legal, security, economic, and tech restrictions, Pakistan’s press navigates constitutional promises clashing with reality. A arsenal of laws—including defamation, anti-terror, blasphemy, and cyber laws—arms authorities against critical coverage.
News editors increasingly practice self-restraint, balancing newsworthiness with peril by toning down reports or burying them. Such caution fragments public conversation, driving reliance on dubious info streams and diminishing faith in factual journalism.
Press freedoms vary wildly across regions; frontier areas like Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa pose deadlier threats than cities, hampered by weak support systems and aggressive ops. This report calls for urgent interventions to protect media workers and revive open dialogue.
