ISLAMABAD: At least 91 cases, including seven murders of\njournalists and a blogger, attacks and other violations, against media and its\npractitioners have been documented in Pakistan over the course of one year \u2013\nbetween May 2019 and April 2020 \u2013 signifying a worryingly escalating climate of\nintimidation and harassment that is adversely affecting the freedom of\nexpression and access to information environment in the country, says a press\nrelease issued here on Thursday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is revealed in the Pakistan Press Freedom Report\n2019-20, titled \u201cMurders, Harassment and Assault: The Tough Wages of Journalism\nin Pakistan,\u201d produced by Freedom Network, a Pakistani media rights watchdog,\nand issued to mark World Press Freedom Day 2020 on May 3.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe screws on media in Pakistan are being tightened through\nvarious means of censorship, including murders, threats, and harassment,\nresulting in increasing silence and resulting in erosion of public-interest\njournalism,\u201d Iqbal Khattak, the Executive Director of Freedom Network, said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe data shows that no place in the four Pakistani\nprovinces or Islamabad is safe \u2013 attacks against journalists are taking place\neverywhere and that shockingly the state and its functionaries have emerged as\nthe principal threat actor wielding the biggest stick to browbeat the media\ninto submission and growing silence,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The following are key findings of the Freedom Network annual\nreport:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Scale of violations against media in Pakistan and their\nfrequency: At least 91 cases of attacks and violations against journalists and\nmedia practitioners were documented in Pakistan in the one year between May 3,\n2019 and April 10, 2020 across all territories of Pakistan, including the four\nprovinces and Islamabad. This is an average of over seven cases of violations a\nmonth \u2013 one every fourth day, or twice a week. The violations included killing\nof seven journalists for their journalism work, two cases of abductions, nine\ncases of arrests, detentions or confinements, 10 cases of physical assaults,\nhalf of which caused severe bodily injuries, one case of attack on the home of\na journalist, 23 cases of specific written or verbal threats, 10 cases of\ncensorship, and eight instances of legal cases registered against journalists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The top three categories of violations against the\njournalists in Pakistan in the period under review included 23 cases of verbal\nor written threats of murder or other dire consequences (25%), at least 13\ncases of offline and online harassment (14%), and 11 cases of assassination\nattempts (12%) of which seven resulted in killing of journalists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The most dangerous region in Pakistan for journalists:\nOverall Islamabad emerged as the riskiest and most dangerous place to practice\njournalism in Pakistan with 34% of the violations (31 out of total 91 cases)\nrecorded in the federal capital. Sindh was the second worst with 27% of the\nviolations (24 cases) followed closely by Punjab with 22% (20 cases), Khyber\nPakhtunkhwa with 14% (13 cases) and Balochistan with 3% (3 cases).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The most targeted medium in Pakistan: Of the total of 91\nattacks and violations against journalists recorded in Pakistan, TV medium\nemerged as the single largest victim of type of media with at least 63 cases\n(69%) of the cases against its practitioners compared to print, radio and\ninternet. Print media was the second most targeted medium with 25 journalists\nworking for it targeted (28%) while three cases were recorded of online\njournalists targeted. No targeting of a radio journalist was documented.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The most serious threat actors targeting media in Pakistan:\nIn a whopping 42% of the 91 documented cases of violations against media\npractitioners in Pakistan, the victims or their families suspect the\ninvolvement of the government functionaries in the attacks on them compared to\nother influential threat actors such as political parties, religious groups or\ncriminal gangs and influential individuals, or unidentified threat sources.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Newspaper: The\nNews<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

ISLAMABAD: At least 91 cases, including seven murders of journalists and a blogger, attacks and other violations, against media and its practitioners have been documented in Pakistan over the course of one year – between May 2019 and April 2020 – signifying a worryingly escalating climate of intimidation and harassment that is adversely affecting the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[9],"tags":[4,3038],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/pakistanfoemonitor.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8971"}],"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=8971"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/pakistanfoemonitor.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8971\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12368,"href":"http:\/\/pakistanfoemonitor.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8971\/revisions\/12368"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/pakistanfoemonitor.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8971"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/pakistanfoemonitor.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8971"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/pakistanfoemonitor.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8971"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}