Pakistan has reported the killing of an eighth journalist in 2024 and is poised to encounter its deadliest year for media practitioners.
The latest victim is Malik Hassan Zaib, a 40-year-old reporter with a privately owned newspaper in Peshawar, the capital of the northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, which borders Afghanistan.
Area police officials said that Zaib and his brother were traveling through the nearby Nowshera district last Sunday when two unidentified gunmen on a motorbike intercepted their car and fatally shot the journalist.
He is the third journalist to die in the violence-hit Pakistani province this year, bringing the number of media workers killed nationwide in 2024 to eight.
The intensified violence against journalists has outraged national and international media freedom advocates, who are demanding that Islamabad investigate and bring to justice those responsible.
The Committee to Protect Journalists, a U.S.-based global media rights group, denounced Zaib’s murder, saying that it was alarmed by the surge in the killing of journalists in the South Asian nation.
“Authorities in Pakistan must immediately end this horrifying wave of violence and hold the perpetrators of the killing of journalist Malik Hassan Zaib to account,” said Carlos Martínez de la Serna, the CPJ program director.
He added, “The continued impunity for those who attack journalists is creating an atmosphere of fear and intimidation in Pakistan, which prevents the practice of free and independent journalism.”
The CPJ said that it is investigating the motives behind the attacks.
There have been no claims of responsibility for the violence, and local activists said that at least half of the journalists were killed because of their reporting.
The Press Emblem Campaign, a Geneva-based international media safety and rights organization, condemned Zaib’s killing and expressed its dismay over the relentless deadly attacks on journalists in Pakistan. It noted that Zaib became the 71st journalist to be murdered in the world in 2024.
Blaise Lempen, the PEC president, pressed Pakistani authorities to apprehend the reporter’s killers and punish them under the law.
“We extend our moral support to the agitating Pakistani media bodies for justice to the victim,” Lempen said. He demanded that “the culture of immunity to the murders must be demolished in Pakistan as early as possible.”
The PEC, in its statement, also identified all eight journalists Pakistan lost to assailants thus far in 2024. Four of them were killed in May alone.
Pakistan dropped two places to 152 of 180 countries in this year’s World Press Freedom Index, published by Reporters Without Borders.
The index described the South Asian nation as “one of the most dangerous countries in the world for journalists, with three to four murders each year that are often linked to cases of corruption or illegal trafficking and which go completely unpunished.”
The Freedom Network, an Islamabad-based advocate group for press freedom, said in a recent report that 53 journalists were killed in Pakistan from 2012 to 2022. It noted that the southern Sindh province had the highest number of fatalities, with 16 deaths, followed by the most populous Punjab province, with 14 fatalities. It added that only two of the 53 cases had led to convictions, both of which were later overturned.
“In the remaining 96% of the cases, the criminal justice system hopelessly failed to deliver justice for the slain journalists and their bereaved families,” the report noted.
While the Pakistani military and its intelligence agencies are routinely accused of orchestrating attacks on journalists who criticize them, influential feudal lords and politicians are also blamed for targeting media practitioners with the help of highly politicized police forces in their native areas.
The military and successive governments in Pakistan have persistently denied any involvement in violence against journalists or stifling media freedoms at large.
Social media curbs
Meanwhile, Pakistan has blocked X, formerly known as Twitter, since February, citing “national security” concerns. Top government officials, including Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, however, continue to tweet official announcements through the social media platform despite the ban.
A privately run major internet service provider in Islamabad on Thursday confirmed that nationwide, Facebook and Instagram services have been disrupted for the last two days.
The company emailed its customers to inform them that they “have requested and are waiting for a reply” from the state-run Pakistan Telecommunication Authority regarding “the reasons for this blockage and when this ban will be lifted.”
Pakistani authorities had announced suspending mobile phone service in parts of the country, including the national capital, to deter extremist attacks during the annual two-day minority Shiite Muslim rituals, which ended on Wednesday.
The federal government has not immediately explained the reason for Facebook and Instagram’s continued suspension, even though mobile phone services have been restored.
Earlier this month, the Sharif government formally authorized the military-run Inter-Services Intelligence, the country’s main spy agency, to intercept citizens’ phone calls and messages, citing national security concerns.
The controversial move sparked widespread outrage, with legal experts denouncing it as unconstitutional and an assault on the dignity of Pakistanis.
