Pakistani reporters are being harassed by the government army
Pakistani reporters face government army harassment, with a dozen incidents reported since Shehbaz Sharif became prime minister. The army’s targeting of critical journalists risks destabilizing Pakistan’s democracy, exemplified by the recent attack on news anchor Sami Ibrahim on July 9th. Ibrahim attributes the assault to prevent coverage, indicating state involvement through their vehicle used during the attack.
Since Shehbaz Sharif took over as a Pakistani prime minister in April, there have been a dozen reports of army-related agencies harassing the media, as RSF cautioned. Critical journalists have been a target of a major army campaign to intimidate their work, parallelly destabilizing Pakistan’s democracy.
This serious decline in press freedom was bolstered with the latest case on 9 July when BOL news anchor, Sami Ibrahim, got attacked by three people. The next day, he posted a YouTube video, saying that the attack was planned to prevent him from filming the scene, and the attackers later left in a vehicle with clear signs of being state-owned.