Pakistan / Asia

EDITOR’S NOTE: Hamid Mir, the executive editor of Pakistan’s Geo Television, survived an April 19 assassination attempt, but was badly injured. The shooting came a few weeks after the Pakistani government pledged in a meeting with CPJ to address the insecurity plaguing the country’s journalists. Shortly after the attack, some Pakistani media stated that CPJ…

Here is a cut and paste email message sent to staffers at The News, in Islamabad. We have their explicit permission to use it. Actually, they requested that we use it, in the hope that publicizing it will somehow protect them.

Masked men threw a hand grenade at the home of Express News Bureau Chief Jamshed Baghwan in the Murshadabad neighborhood of Peshawar on April 6, 2014, according to news reports. Baghwan was in his home at the time of the attack, but no one was injured, news accounts said. The main gate of the home…

New York, April 22, 2014–The Committee to Protect Journalists is greatly concerned by actions brought by Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence Directorate (ISI) against Geo Television today. In its complaint to the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority, the ISI accused Geo’s parent company, the Independent Media Corporation, of conducting a “false and scandalous campaign undermining the…

New York, April 19, 2014­–The Committee to Protect Journalists is alarmed by the continuing violence directed at journalists in Pakistan. Geo News senior anchor Hamid Mir today was shot three times soon after he and his driver left Karachi’s main airport, according to media reports. The driver was not wounded.

In Pakistan, reporting on the military intelligence services or insurgent groups or machinations within political parties is the normal grist for the media mill. A lot of the coverage relies on reporters with inside sources. The sources use the media as a battleground for their infighting, relying on sympathetic reporters to put forward their positions.…

CPJ’s 2014 Global Impunity Index spotlights countries where journalists are slain and the killers go free IraqUnsolved Murders: 100Population: 32.6 millionRank: 1 SomaliaUnsolved Murders: 26Population: 10.2 millionRank: 2 The PhilippinesUnsolved Murders: 51Population: 96.7 millionRank: 3 Sri LankaUnsolved Murders: 9Population: 20.3 millionRank: 4 SyriaUnsolved Murders: 7Population: 22.4 millionRank: 5 AfghanistanUnsolved Murders: 5Population: 29.8 millionRank: 6 MexicoUnsolved…

A few days after our CPJ delegation met with Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and secured commitments to combat threats to journalists in Pakistan, I sat down with reporters from the country’s most restive regions, who described in detail the conditions in which they work.