Reporters Without Borders or Reporters or in French Reporters sans Frontiers ( RSF ) has placed Pakistan at 152 out of 180 countries. Pakistan stood at 150 in 2023 in the RSF press freedom index, which means Pakistan’s press freedom and safety of journalists have declined by two steps in 2024. India is even below Pakistan with 150th place.
As far as India is concerned since the assumption of power by Prime Minister Narendra Modi India is slipping backwards regarding press freedom and safety of journalists. Prime Minister Narendra Modi introduced the
Telecommunication Act 2023, the Broadcasting Services Regulation Bill, and the Digital Personal Data Protection Act. The concentration of media ownership is at its peak in India, meaning agenda-setting in favor of government and corporate interests is being carried out with impunity. For example, Mukesh Ambani owns 500 media outlets. Occupied Kashmir and different insurgencies including Khalistan and Modi’s Hinduvata have brought his government to the stage where it is suppressing voices from these conflict zones by employing all tactics up its sleeves.
In Pakistan, the situation is not promising as well with the presence of online media and a constant struggle of civil society to report acts of aggression by the power that be. Every year three to four journalists are murdered. In all 70 cases of harassment of journalists have been reported in conflict areas. Shehbaz Sharif’s government tabled the Safety Bill and Personal Data Collection Bill in Pakistan. Given the boom in social media and free voice origination from these platforms, the government last year asked Google, Facebook, and YouTube to open offices here to ensure control of the content.
That said, there are various laws in Pakistan under which journalists can be apprehended or tamed down. For instance, PEMRA and PAPRA regulations of which latter faced resistance from journalists. Historically, PPO and some pre-partition laws as the Maintenance of Public Order and Official Secret Act have been used against journalists. The latter two are still being used as instruments to curb journalists’ voices. The takeover of the National Press Trust ( NPT) by the Ayub regime is another example. General Zia ul Haq, for his part, imposed press censorship.
In the face of all these anti-press actions, the struggle to revive press freedom makes for a very inspiring chapter in our history. Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists ( PFUJ ) spearheaded that campaign. It is heartening that the Pakistan Press Foundation (PPF) is collecting articles from journalists involved in that struggle. The website of PPF would indicate the site of the article collection. The present ranking of Pakistan is not pleasant news as without access to information and freedom of expression as enshrined in Article 19 of the Constitution of Pakistan and also in the UN Declaration of Human Rights, democracy will not take root in Pakistan.
In the absence of information rumors and disinformation take place, propaganda peaks up and society becomes chaotic and violent. The stakeholders must be seriously concerned about this state of affairs concerning media freedom and the safety of journalists and rectify this situation.
