Mission Journal: Finding a legal solution to siege of Pakistan’s media
Pakistan’s media, long under siege, face new challenges. “We had managed to get the genie out of the lamp,” was the way one Pakistani journalist explained it to me during a trip there last month. “But now, the military has pushed it back in and I’m not sure when we’ll be able to get it…
After Charlie Hebdo attack, vigils, protests and publishing bans
Protests against the French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo were held in Afghanistan, Pakistan, the Middle East and parts of Africa over the weekend, as crowds demonstrated against the magazine’s portrayal of the Prophet Muhammad, according to news reports.
More threats against Pakistan’s Hamid Mir
The well-known and controversial Pakistani television talk show host Hamid Mir survived a murder attempt on April 19, even though he was hit with six bullets–two of which are still in his body. “I can move, I can walk and I can talk, but I am still undergoing physiotherapy and taking medication,” he emailed to…
When it comes to the right to report, journalists must stand together
Pakistani journalists I have met over the years know that while I might be an American, I have never been an apologist for the U.S. government. The goal of the Committee to Protect Journalists is to assist members of the press no matter where they are, and if we have to criticize their governments, well…
Back-to-back display killings of journalists unprecedented
The apparent back-to-back murders of two American freelance journalists by the same group are unprecedented in CPJ’s history. The beheadings on camera in a two-week period of first James Foley and then Steven Sotloff appear to be an acceleration of a pattern–dating at least to Daniel Pearl’s killing in 2002–of criminal and insurgent groups displaying…
Threats and attacks against press amid political crisis in Pakistan
The ongoing political crisis in Pakistan turned deadly over the weekend with three protesters dead and at least 500 wounded in the capital, Islamabad. As is often the case, the press was not spared from violence, with dozens of journalists covering the rally injured by police or protesters, according to news reports and the Pakistan…
Q&A: Pakistan’s Hamid Mir speaks about climate for press freedom following attack
In April, Geo News senior anchor Hamid Mir was shot multiple times shortly after a CPJ delegation met with Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, who pledged to take several steps to improve journalist security. The investigation into the attack has yielded no accountability. And since the attack, two arrest warrants have been issued by courts in…
Blasphemy charges, threats loom for outspoken journalist in Pakistan
Forty-nine year-old magazine editor and publisher Shoaib Adil fled his home in the eastern city of Lahore last month and went into hiding with his wife and children. Adil faces threats and possible charges of blasphemy–a crime punishable by life imprisonment or death–in connection with a book he published in 2007, written by a judge…
Seeking release of Pakistani journalist Faizullah Khan, jailed in Afghanistan
It’s not often that CPJ agrees with the Pakistan government, but here is one of the rare occasions when we do. While Pakistan journalists have been pushing for quite a while for the release of one of their colleagues, Faizullah Khan, being held in Nangahar in Afghanistan, the Islamabad government has apparently been working diplomatic…