Margins of dissent for citizens, media and political parties in Pakistan erode: report

Reduced tolerance for online dissent, shutting down mobile networks on election day, throttling of internet access, forced suspension of social media platforms, and a raft of attacks and harassment of journalists and bloggers, including the murder of four journalists, significantly eroded the parameters of general free speech and dissent in Pakistan over the past 12 months while enhancing the risks for media freedoms.

This was stated in the annual Pakistan Freedom of Expression and Media Report 2024, produced by Freedom Network and issued ahead of World Press Freedom Day on May 3.

The report, titled "Erosion of free speech: The silencing of citizens, political parties, and media," covers the period from May 2023 to April 2024 and raises important issues regarding the shrinking margins of dissent and the risks faced by journalists and media practitioners.

The report noted the murder of four journalists during this period, highlighting the dangerous environment in which media professionals operate.

A total of 104 cases of violations against journalists and other media practitioners, including murders, attacks, injuries, kidnapping, threats and legal cases, were documented by Freedom Network.

“Freedom of expression loses its meaning if citizens and their representatives in political parties cannot express themselves freely and curbs on media and online civic spaces are curtailed in negation of constitutional guarantees,” said Iqbal Khattak, Freedom Network Executive Director.

 “Acute political polarisation and governance and economic instability saw three governments in the one year between May 2023 and April 2024 in Pakistan. Through their actions all three ruling dispensations seemed to have evolved an alarming consensus among its most powerful political and state figures to lower their threshold of tolerance to freedom of expression, particularly online dissent,” the report underlined.

The report outlined a pattern of crackdowns that have targeted journalists, bloggers, and political workers. This included legal notices, arrests, attacks, and intimidation, according to the report. “Political workers also came in the dragnet. All this transpired against a backdrop of warnings of actions by high officials, including top government functionaries, followed by regular targeting of online expression.”

The report said that apart from state-driven intimidation, predatory actions by some non-state actors saw over 200 journalists, bloggers and other online information practitioners targeted by way of over 70 legal notices served to them. “Many came consequent to a ‘joint investigation team’ of various government departments tasked with identifying persons allegedly running a smear campaign against some judges although the chief justice later said he was not a complainant, and that the judiciary was being used to target free expression aimed at others.”

In addition to these concerns, the report raised alarms about proposed legislation, such as the E-Safety Bill and Personal Data Protection Bill, which could further restrict online content and undermine media freedoms. The lack of public consultations on these bills is also a point of contention.