Pakistan broadcast regulator proposes sweeping control of internet news programs
Munizae Jahangir knew she’d be prevented from putting Mohsin Dawar on her nightly “Spotlight” talk show on Aaj TV, an Urdu-language Pakistani station. Dawar, an elected member of the national assembly, is a leading figure of the Pashtun Tahafuz Movement (PTM), which aims to boost the rights of the Pashtun people clustered in Pakistan’s western…
Pakistani news program cancelled amid defamation suits from prime minister
On August 6, 2019, Pakistani broadcaster Channel 24 HD cancelled the “Najam Sethi Show,” a news and political commentary program, after the broadcaster’s management received a phone call from an unidentified individual demanding the show be dropped, according to Najam Sethi, the show’s host, who spoke with CPJ on the phone.
CPJ urges Pakistani officials to rescue Jang executive, keep other journalists safe
New York, September 29, 2016– The Committee to Protect Journalists today condemned the kidnapping of Abid Abdullah, executive director of the Jang media group, and called on Pakistani authorities to ensure the safety of journalists who the kidnappers explicitly threatened.
Chishti abducted, beaten: Challenge for Pakistan
Ali Chishti, who writes for The Friday Times, has gone public in Islamabad with details of his abduction and beating last Friday, August 30. Chishti is making the rounds of TV talk shows describing how he was picked up in Karachi by uniformed police driving a police vehicle, blindfolded, switched to another police vehicle, taken…
Another Pakistan attack, this one online
The Friday Times in Lahore has come under cyberattack. Earlier Friday, its website could not be accessed. Najam Sethi, the paper’s editor, told CPJ that someone has “launched an attack on the websites of both The Friday Times and Vanguard Books [the book publishing and distribution company that owns the Times]. A tsunami of killer…
Threats and menace: Pakistan’s war on words
In Pakistan, the term “a war of words” can take on a menacing dimension beyond the metaphorical. Words–written, spoken, or reported–regularly land journalists in trouble, a very literal, physical sort of trouble. Reporters have become accustomed to being threatened, and over the years they’ve seen threats sometimes build to abductions, beatings, and even death. Such…
Pakistan journalists ‘threatened by security’ personnel
After airing a piece critical of the Pakistani military, senior journalists Najam Sethi and Hamid Mir received serious threats from what they described as “both non-state and state actors.” Pakistan was the most dangerous country for journalists in 2011 and the CPJ is working to keep these journalists safe by publishing these threats, bringing them…
More revelations of threats to Pakistani journalists
We released a statement Thursday–CPJ supports Pakistani journalists facing threats–about the decision of two Pakistani journalists to publicly announce the threats they had been receiving. Najam Sethi, editor of The Friday Times and host of a popular Urdu-language political program on Geo TV, and Jugnu Mohsin, also a Friday Times editor, said they had lived…
CPJ supports Pakistani journalists facing threats
New York, December 29, 2011–The Committee to Protect Journalists admires and supports the decision of Pakistani journalists Najam Sethi and Jugnu Mohsin to make public the threats that have driven them at times to live outside their country in recent months. Sethi and Mohsin are returning to their home in Lahore and are determined to…
Sethi: Pakistani media challenging military
Pakistani journalist Najam Sethi was in the United States last week to talk about the challenges facing his country at a critical moment. Ever the contrarian, he also sees opportunities. “For the first time the media is challenging the military,” he told an audience of friends and colleagues at CPJ offices in New York. “That’s…