Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists

13 results arranged by date

Pakistan's President Asif Ali Zardari gestures from a car in Nawabshah on February 8, 2024. (Photo: AFP)

Free speech fears mount as Pakistan’s Senate approves bill criminalizing ‘false news’

New York, January 28, 2025—Pakistan’s Senate on Tuesday passed controversial amendments to the country’s cybercrime laws, which would criminalize the “intentional” spread of “false news” with prison terms of up to three years, a fine of up to 2 million rupees (USD$7,100), or both.  The amendments to the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act (PECA) were…

Read More ›

Editor attacked in Pakistan-administered Kashmir

On March 7, 2014, at least 20 assailants stormed the offices of Chingari, an Urdu-language daily based in Mirpur, Pakistan-administered Kashmir, according to local reports and local press freedom groups, including the Freedom Network and the Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists. 

Read More ›

When Journalists Are Killed, Witnesses May Be Next

Eliminating witnesses has become an all too easy and eff ective method of stymying justice when journalists are assassinated. By Elisabeth Witchel

Read More ›

A fine and shifting line for Pakistan’s media

The government of Balochistan, the troubled southwestern province of Pakistan, registered a case against national television news channel ARY on Monday, August 26, after it aired a video clip of the destruction of the residence of Pakistan’s founder, Muhammed Ali Jinnah. The case was filed under Pakistan’s Anti-Terrorist Act of 1997, claiming that airing the…

Read More ›

Pakistan must determine motive behind killing of reporter

New York, May 28, 2013–Pakistani authorities should identify the motive behind the fatal shooting of a local crime reporter and bring the perpetrators to justice, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today.

Read More ›

A bomb disposal officer checks the site of today's blast in Quetta, where at least two journalists were killed. (Reuters/Naseer Ahmed)

At least two journalists killed in Quetta blasts

New York, January 10, 2013–At least two journalists were killed and two others seriously injured when a bomb went off near a billiards hall in Quetta, capital of Pakistan’s restive Baluchistan province, as the journalists were reporting on an explosion that was set off there just minutes earlier, according to local journalists and news reports.…

Read More ›

Election corruption grave threat to Pakistan’s media

“Elections will not be fought, but will be bought,” is a saying being used by political tacticians in Pakistan. Hope for the legitimacy of the country’s first fair transfer of power between two civilian governments with the oversight of unbiased media is disappearing quickly. Billions of rupees are pouring into media outlets through secret sources,…

Read More ›

From a poster by the International Federation of Journalists and the Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists.

For safety’s sake: New journalist safety rules in Pakistan

I got an early version of the Khyber Union of Journalists’ (KhUJ) list of safety rules and tips for field reports around June 16, after the June 11 double bomb in a crowded market that killed two journalists in Peshawar. Yousaf Ali, KhUJ’s general secretary had forwarded the list. It was quickly drawn up after…

Read More ›

Syed Saleem Shahzad, right, with Pakistani journalist Qamar Yousafzai at the Afghan border in 2006 after being released by the Taliban. (AP)

How can Pakistani journalists protect themselves?

The memorial service in Washington for journalist Saleem Shahzad–who was killed around May 29–was held at the National Press Club this past Monday. Anwar Iqbal, dean of the Pakistani press corps in Washington, led the ceremony. Ambassador to the U.S. Hussain Haqqani spoke eloquently about the degree of loss brought by Shahzad’s brutal killing. While…

Read More ›

Death of local reporter in Pakistan must be fully investigated

New York, January 11, 2011–The Committee to Protect Journalists joins with our colleagues in Pakistan in calling for a full investigation into the killing of Ilyas Nizzar, who was found dead in Pidarak, in the volatile Baluchistan province, in Pakistan’s southwest, on January 5. Nizzar, a general assignment reporter with the Baluch-language magazine Darwanth, had been…

Read More ›