November 3, 2025
By Xari Jalil
LAHORE
On his message on the International Day to End Impunity for Crimes against Journalists, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif paid tribute to the journalists who had lost their lives in the line of duty and had faced countless challenges in their pursuit of truth and justice. He said that his government was committed to protecting press freedom and ensuring a safe environment for journalists.
“We will take all necessary measures to guarantee effective investigation of crimes against journalists, deliver justice, and ensure legal action against the perpetrators,” he said adding that a free media was the basis of democracy and any act of violence against journalists, was an attack on freedom of expression.
But the Prime Minister’s remarks were met with anger and distrust by hundreds of working journalists who have repeatedly seen their colleagues being hurt, threatened, and even killed while on the line of duty.
Taking the lead on representing the journalist community across the country, the Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists (PFUJ) was first to express their displeasure on the lack of safety and security of journalists, and pointed out that those targeting journalists enjoyed endless impunity.
“There can be no real press freedom without accountability for attacks against members of the media,” said PFUJ President Afzal Butt and Secretary General Arshad Ansari in their statement.
This reaction by the journalist community to the PM’s remarks comes as crimes against journalists witness a sharp surge jumping nearly 60pc over the past year, with 142 cases documented between Nov 2024 and Sept 2025.
Violence against journalists
On September 21, Imtiaz Mir, a current affairs anchorperson for Metro 1 TV channel, was shot by unidentified gunmen, as he was travelling to work in Karachi in a car being driven by his brother. He sustained two grievous bullet wounds in his face. He was rushed to a hospital but after a week, he succumbed to his injuries. Mir hosted current affairs program Aaj Ki Baat With Imtiaz Mir where he discussed many issues, but according to the authorities it was something else that ended up in him being on a hit list.
After weeks of investigation, the Sindh Home Minister at a press conference said that police and intelligence agencies in a joint raid apprehended four suspects belonging to a banned militant outfit, who claimed they had killed Mir because of his alleged “sympathy to Israel”.
Whether this motive was true or not, the nabbing of this journalist’s killers was a rare moment in the landscape of Pakistan’s history with regard to attacks on journalists. Till date there are several prominent cases where journalists have been killed yet no one has been nabbed.
Violent crimes
A report by the organization Freedom Network released this year, observes a sharp rise in the attacks and violations against journalists and other media professionals across Pakistan. These incidents were documented between November 2024 and September 2025 and during this ten-month period, at least 142 cases of violations were documented, marking a nearly 60 percent increase compared to the previous year.
The hostile environment for media, which intensified after the February 2024 general elections, has made almost every region in Pakistan unsafe for journalism, with incidents reported across all provinces and territories.
“We welcome the prime minister’s remarks,” says Iqbal Khattak, Executive Director of Freedom Network. “But these remarks should also have some practical impact. What we want is for all of the serious crimes against journalists being investigated in the same manner as was Imtiaz Mir’s killing. What we see instead is that over the past 10 or 15 years or even more, approximately 99 percent of the cases remain unsolved, and perpetrators have enjoyed complete impunity.”
According to Khattak, FN’s research reveals that there are three top perpetrators that attack journalists in more than one way. “We have found out through reported crimes that the top perpetrators are state actors, non-state actors and private actors,” he said. “These are crimes against those journalists who have been attacked or threatened only because of their work – not due to personal enmity or any other reason.”
Khattak says the biggest reason is that there is weak investigation and prosecution and above all a poor understanding of the issue of freedom of expression.
“For example we have been pushing since years now, to make the judiciary see that the 2014 attack on Hamid Mir took place because of his work as a journalist,” he says. “But in this and in many other cases, they refuse to attach these two things together and prefer to see the attack or threat as an independent matter.”
In the recent past a few incidents that have taken place in foreign countries have also shaken the journalist community in Pakistan.
The case of Sajid Hussain Baloch, in 2020, who had been living in Sweden at the time he first went missing, and then turned up dead in a river, set many to firmly believe that he had been in the crosshairs of the State as he had been speaking about the issue of missing persons, enforced disappearances and the law and order situation in Balochistan.
Similarly, the case of Arshad Sharif, an anchorperson who was killed brutally in Kenya on an abandoned road also sent shock waves among local journalists, now realizing that the hands of the perpetrators were quite long.
“It shows that impunity has taken deeper root, and in the new dynamics of the prevailing situation, we can see that security is now a global issue,” adds Khattak. He says that the Journalists’ Commission which is working in Sindh is an essential component to ensure security and proper investigation in issues of journalists.
“We need these commissions that make sure that the government investigation is transparent,” he says.
‘Journalists have been weakened over time’
“Journalists have been kept weak on purpose in economic terms – they suffer from employment issues and this is a trickle down effect from the state’s attitude,” says Dr Tauseef Ahmed who is part of the Sindh journalist’s commission, as well as the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP).
Tauseef says that while attacking journalists abroad is the worst ‘face of state oppression’, locally speaking journalists have become weak because they have no jobs, and have become splintered because that is the way the state has been ensuring this over decades.
“The splitting up of the unions has been detrimental to the cause of journalists, and this remains in the background, but it is a major issue linked with the violence they are facing today,” he explains. “The weakness is exploited later by both state and non-state actors. We see violent crimes against journalists on one side, while on the other we see legal cases being slapped on them.”
Tauseef points out that in Sindh many of the cases of attacks on journalists have happened because of personal issues (arising once again indirectly from economic weaknesses), while the legal cases (under PECA especially) are mostly slapped on journalists working in the capital city.
“Some of them end up compromising, others are repeatedly harassed and threatened including Matiullah Jan,” he said. “The Sindh Journalists’ Commission released a report a few years ago after a journalist was killed in Ghotki and we pointed out the involvement of the intelligence agencies. The report reached the chief justice who said that though there was no proof of the agencies’ involvement, it was integral that the agencies were somehow monitored and kept in check, but nothing happened after this. I believe the issue should have been discussed at length – not just in the media, but especially in the parliament. Unfortunately these discussions do not happen in parliament.”
He expresses his frustration and disappointment in the attitude of the State.
“Upholding Article 19 and Article 19-A is meant to be the responsibility of the State, but in Pakistan it is just not the State’s priority,” he says. “They say it is, but their inaction shows otherwise.”
Meanwhile, data processed by Freedom Network in its report ‘Impunity’, reveals that Islamabad and Punjab were jointly the most dangerous places for journalists, each accounting for 28% of the violations, followed closely by Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Sindh, Balochistan, and Azad Jammu and Kashmir. No cases were reported from Gilgit-Baltistan.
The report showed that the most targeted medium was television, followed by print and digital media, with one radio journalist also affected.
Violations recorded till the release of the report show one verified murder of a journalist, four assassination attempts, 30 instances of legal action, 15 cases of arrest and detention, 39 cases of physical assault, 30 threats (both online and offline), three kidnappings, three disappearances, and ten digital threats. A majority of the documented victims were journalists, but other media professionals such as citizen journalists and non-editorial staff were also targeted.
Legislation
Pakistan was the first country to legislate specifically for the safety of journalists, with laws enacted at both the federal and Sindh provincial levels.
However, the operationalization of these laws and the establishment of safety commissions have been inconsistent, with only Sindh and the federal government making significant progress.
Data paints a picture of escalating risks and persistent impunity, in Pakistan with journalists facing threats to their lives, frequent legal harassment, and physical violence, especially in regions like Islamabad, Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. The findings underscore the urgent need for stronger protections and accountability mechanisms for media practitioners in Pakistan.
The top three categories of violations against journalists and OMPs in Pakistan during the period under review were (i) 39 cases of physical assault (27%) in which 19 journalists and one OMP were injured and 19 manhandled; (ii) 30 cases of specific legal actions (21%) involving civil and criminal law; and (iii) 20 cases in which threats of legal actions (14%) were issued either by a private party or the state. The top three most frequent categories constituted a total of 89 cases (62%) – over half of the total number of violations.
Legal harassment
During 2025, at least 36 formal legal cases filed against 30 journalists and media practitioners by government authorities, with dozens more receiving notifications for alleged infractions under PECA. Of these, 22 cases were under PECA and 14 under PPC, with some individuals facing multiple charges. Most PECA cases targeted practitioners in Punjab, while all PPC cases were also in Punjab.
The January 2025 amendments to PECA were passed quickly, with little consultation, and introduced controversial provisions such as criminalizing “fake or false” information, establishing the Digital Rights Protection Authority (DRPA) with broad powers, and expanding the definition of blockable content to include broadcast media.
Despite widespread opposition to the January 2025 amendments, the government authorities introduced yet another amendment to strengthen PECA in September 2025. According to Reporters Without Borders, this move demonstrated the government’s determination to expand digital control mechanisms despite domestic and international criticism.
Further restrictions were added in September 2025, reinforcing the government’s intent to control digital spaces despite criticism. Data varies but data tracked and verified by this report in the period under review (data from other sources is referenced below) showed at least 36 formal legal cases were filed against 30 individual journalists and other media practitioners in Pakistan by government authorities. These were formal legal cases while dozens of other journalists were issued sublegal notifications to show case for various alleged infractions under the Prevention of Cyber Crime Act (PECA) law.
Of the formal legal cases, one category of cases was under the Prevention of Cyber Crime Act (PECA) under which 22 media practitioners were charged and the other category was the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC) under which at least 8 media practitioners were charged with 14 separate cases. Some of the media practitioners faced more than one cases under PPC against themselves.
“Three journalists were picked up in Karachi and we asked them to appear in front of the journalists’ commission,” says Dr Tauseef. “But they refused due to fear of security to their lives. This is a vicious cycle.”