KARACHI: A global media watchdog,\u00a0Reporters Without Borders (RSF), on Tuesday slammed attempts to \u201cintimidate Pakistan\u2019s journalists\u201d and said a reporter critical of army and intelligence services was being\u00a0prosecuted for \u201ccyber-terrorism\u201d.<\/p>\n

The global watchdog said Shahzeb Jillani, who worked for\u00a0Dunya News<\/em>\u00a0and had also worked for\u00a0BBC<\/em>and\u00a0Deutsche Welle<\/em>\u00a0in the past, was currently facing charges under a controversial electronic crimes act and two criminal code provisions.<\/p>\n

The charges include \u201cdefamatory remarks against the respected institutions of Pakistan\u201d and \u201ccyber-terrorism\u201d, the RSF said, calling on a Karachi court to dismiss the charges.<\/p>\n

\u201cPakistan\u2019s authorities are yet again manipulating the laws in order to silence a journalist who dared to cross a red line by criticising certain institutions,\u201d said Daniel Bastard, the head of RSF\u2019s Asia-Pacific desk.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is shocking to see how, little by little, case by case, the Pakistani security agencies are tightening their vice in order to intimidate the entire media profession into censoring themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n

Criticism of the security establishment has long been seen as a red line for the country\u2019s media, with journalists and bloggers complaining of intimidation tactics including kidnappings, beatings, and even killings if they cross that line, the media watchdog said.<\/p>\n

The Committee to Protect Journalists in a report released in September 2018 said the army had \u201cquietly but effectively set restrictions on reporting\u201d.<\/p>\n

The complaint against Jillani accuses him of making \u201caudacious\u201d remarks against \u201cinvisible security forces\u201d during a 2017\u00a0Dunya TV<\/em>\u00a0appearance, and making similar comments in 2019.<\/p>\n

The initial police report into the complaint, seen by\u00a0AFP<\/em>, notes that in investigating the claim it was also revealed that Jillani had tweeted \u201csarcastic, derogatory, disrespectful and defamatory language\u201d against Pakistan and institutions including the military and army chief.<\/p>\n

The report said the tweet was tantamount to creating a \u201csense of fear, panic, insecurity in the government institutions, general public and society\u201d.<\/p>\n

Jillani is due to appear before a court on Wednesday, according to RSF.<\/p>\n

Dawn<\/a><\/p>\n

Related Story<\/strong><\/p>\n

Dawn:\u00a0Harassing journalists<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

KARACHI: A global media watchdog, Reporters Without Borders (RSF), on Tuesday slammed attempts to “intimidate Pakistan’s journalists” and said a reporter critical of army and intelligence services was being prosecuted for “cyber-terrorism”. The global watchdog said Shahzeb Jillani, who worked for Dunya News and had also worked for BBCand Deutsche Welle in the past, was currently facing charges under a controversial electronic […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[9],"tags":[4,328,3038],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/pakistanfoemonitor.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7843"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/pakistanfoemonitor.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/pakistanfoemonitor.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/pakistanfoemonitor.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/pakistanfoemonitor.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7843"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/pakistanfoemonitor.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7843\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/pakistanfoemonitor.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7843"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/pakistanfoemonitor.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7843"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/pakistanfoemonitor.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7843"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}