Pakistan

Tension between Pakistan’s military and intelligence communities and much of the media swiftly escalated following an assassination attempt on Geo TV anchor Hamid Mir on April 19. Pakistan’s ISI brought a complaint to the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority, accusing Geo TV of conducting a “false and scandalous campaign undermining the integrity and tarnishing the image of state…

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.

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…

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.…

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. 

New York, March 28, 2014–The Committee to Protect Journalist condemns today’s attack on the senior Pakistani journalist Raza Rumi in Lahore, which killed his driver. Unidentified gunmen fired on Rumi’s car near the Raja Market neighborhood after he left the studio following his TV show. Rumi and his guard were injured, according to news reports.…

For the last decade, Pakistan has been one of the world’s most dangerous countries for the media. At least 46 journalists have been killed, 24 of them murdered for the “crime” of covering the intelligence services, the Taliban, separatists in Baluchistan, or the criminal underworld. The result is a legacy of self-censorship and fear among…

CPJ’s mission to Pakistan and meeting with Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif garnered both domestic and international media attention. The Intentional Business Times was one of the many outlets that detailed the positive outcome of the meeting.Read the full article here.

Islamabad, March 19, 2014 — In a wide-ranging meeting today with a delegation from the Committee to Protect Journalists, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif pledged to continue to expand Pakistan’s media freedoms and address the insecurity plaguing the country’s journalists. He also promised to ease visa and travel restrictions on foreign journalists working in the county.