Coalition launched to combat impunity of crimes against media workers

Coalition aims to become leading national platform advocating for national agenda on safety of journalists

ISLAMABAD: A new initiative, Pakistan Journalists Safety Coalition (PJSC), was launched in Islamabad on Wednesday to combat the impunity of crimes against journalists and strengthening the prevention, prosecution and protection regime for media practitioners in Pakistan.

Addressing the founding meeting of the PJSC in Islamabad on Wednesday, Iqbal Khattak, executive director of national media watchdog organisation Freedom Network, said that measures were needed to be coordinated, endorsed and adopted by key stakeholders of the media sector in Pakistan to reduce the range of threats that journalists, media workers and media houses face.



The safety coalition aims to become the leading national platform advocating for a national agenda on the safety of journalists and other media workers and strengthening freedom of expression and free media in Pakistan in line with UN Sustainable Development Goal no 16 and the United Nations (UN) Plan of Action Against Impunity and Issues of Safety.

“The threats facing Pakistani media and its practitioners is unacceptable that have, according to Freedom Network and Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists, killed over 120 journalists since 2000 and resulted in injuries, assaults, arrests, kidnapping and other forms of serious intimidation faced by hundreds of other journalists and media workers,” Khattak said.

The foundation meeting, facilitated by Freedom Network, approved a decentralised structure for PJSC, which will be operationalised through a steering committee and facilitate five chapters – four provincial and one for Islamabad.

The local chapters will lead local advocacy efforts with provincial governments, provincial legislatures and other provincial stakeholders, including media, civil society and academia.



The efforts of the local chapters, as well as the Steering Committee will be to facilitate local solutions to combating impunity of crimes against journalists, including thorough lobbying for provincial laws on journalists’ safety and other administrative mechanisms to enact prevention, prosecution and protection measures for journalists.

The meeting approved and endorsed scope of work for the PJSC Steering Committee which included working towards establishing a national mechanism on safety of journalists, media workers and media groups. In order to guide the PJSC, an eight-member steering committee was constituted.

The committee includes former senator Farhatullah Babar, former National Commission for Human Rights member Chaudhry Shafique, Digital Rights Foundation Executive Director Nighat Dad, former editor of Dawn and The News Muhammad Ziauddin, former secretary general of Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists Fauzia Shahid, media rights campaigner Adnan Rehmat and Institute of Research, Advocacy and Development Executive Director Aftab Alam and Freedom Network Executive Director Iqbal Khattak.