The life of a\njournalist seems to be in perpetual peril. The correspondent of an\nEnglish-language daily in Umerkot is the latest among the journalist community\nto have faced physical assault. More than two dozen armed men entered by force\nthe house of AB Arisar located in the desert region on Wednesday and subjected\nhis family to severe torture. The house inmates told reporters that 15 men\narmed with axes, sticks and hammers barged into the house after breaking open\nlocks, subjected them to torture, and dragged them out to occupy the premises.\nWhile the apparent motive of the invasion appears unrelated to the journalist\u2019s\nprofessional work, the fact that his existence is vulnerable to attacks by\nmiscreants tells us just how under death-defying environment our journos carry\nout their work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Journalists in\nPakistan continue to face violence amid a worryingly escalating climate of\nintimidation and harassment. No surprise then that Pakistan has only marginally\nslipped \u2014 three notches \u2014 on the World Press Freedom index for the year 2020,\nreaching 145^{th<\/sup> position out of 180 countries. Reporters Without\nBorders shines a dismal light on the state of media in the country. It says\nmedia outlets in Pakistan have been threatened with the withdrawal of\nadvertising. The signals of TV channels that gave airtime to opposition\nrepresentatives have been jammed. Journalists who dared to broach subjects\ndeemed off-limits have been subjected to harassment campaigns. It goes on to\ndescribe how journalists continue to be at risk in the field, especially in\nBalochistan and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, where reporters are caught in the crossfire\nbetween the security forces and militants. Four journalists and a blogger were\nkilled in connection with their reporting in 2019, while one journalist was\nkilled in 2020.<\/p>\n\n\n\n}

As has been\nemphasized umpteen times in these columns, the impunity with which journalists\nare made target of violence must come to an end.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Newspaper: Tribune<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The life of a journalist seems to be in perpetual peril. The correspondent of an English-language daily in Umerkot is the latest among the journalist community to have faced physical assault. More than two dozen armed men entered by force the house of AB Arisar located in the desert region on Wednesday and subjected his […]<\/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],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/pakistanfoemonitor.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8991"}],"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=8991"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/pakistanfoemonitor.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8991\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/pakistanfoemonitor.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8991"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/pakistanfoemonitor.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8991"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/pakistanfoemonitor.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8991"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}