NGO condemns killing of 11 journalists in Pakistan over past two years

Eleven journalists have been killed in Pakistan over the past two years, an organization that monitors the state of journalism in the Asian country said on Monday, adding that 248 attacks on the press were reported over the same period.

Despite the historic approval in 2021 of two laws that made Pakistan the first country in the world to create a legal framework to protect journalists, Red de Libertad executive director Iqbal Khattak insisted that effective mechanisms were still in place. in the country for its implementation.

“These two laws are landmark when it comes to the safety of journalists in a country like Pakistan, but there is no mechanism for their implementation,” Khattak said.

The Pakistani organization noted in its annual report that despite this important legal instrument to combat growing impunity for crimes against journalists, “Pakistan continues to record an alarming increase in harassment of journalists, especially by government agencies and public institutions.”

Kidnappings, physical attacks and serious legal proceedings against journalists, including unproven charges of sedition, treason and electronic crimes, are just some of the attacks faced by media professionals in the Asian country, the report said.

The document, titled “One step forward, two steps back: Pakistan enacts safety laws for journalists but still fails to protect them,” points out that 93 of the 248 incidents against journalists were recorded in Islamabad alone between August 2021 and August 2023.

The southern province of Sindh, where one of the laws protecting journalists was born, is Pakistan’s second worst region for targeting these professionals, with 22.5% of attacks on journalists occurring there.

“Ironically, most attacks on journalists occurred during this period in regions where laws were in place to ensure their safety,” the report says.

Pakistan was ranked 157th out of 180 countries in the 2021 Reporters Without Borders World Press Freedom Index, before the laws were passed.

Although the country’s ranking has risen from 157th to 150th in 2023, due to the adoption of these laws, the Sindh authorities and the federal parliament “are responsible for the disruption of the functioning of their own laws and, therefore, for the delay and, in effect, denial of justice.” for journalists,” says another journalist advocacy organization, Freedom Network.

“It is very disturbing to see how the good work of the two legislative chambers – the Sindh Assembly and the Federal Parliament – is being undermined by the failure to enact laws that provide full protection to journalists,” Khattak concluded.