Islamabad, May 3: Ahead of World Press Freedom Day 2026, a recent report by the Pakistan Press Foundation (PPF) highlights the severe challenges faced by media in Pakistan. Journalists are grappling with legal pressures, violence, digital harassment, and financial constraints.
The report documents at least 233 incidents targeting journalists between January 2025 and April 2026. This includes 67 attacks, 67 criminal complaints, 11 arrests, 11 detentions, and three abductions.
According to the Pakistani daily ‘Dawn’, the shadow of the Pakistan Electronic Crimes Act (PECA) looms large over this report. Amendments were made to the law at the beginning of 2025, which the PPF claims were passed in Parliament without consulting stakeholders.
‘Dawn’ noted, “PECA has become the preferred weapon against journalists. Of the recorded 67 criminal complaints, 34 utilized PECA.”
The report states that notices and summons from the National Cyber Crime Investigation Agency (NCCIA) have become “commonplace.” The pattern is disheartening and predictable. When a journalist publishes something controversial, a complaint is swiftly lodged against them.
Human rights lawyer Iman Zainab Mazari-Hazir and her husband Hadi Ali, who advocated for journalists in PECA-related cases, received 17-year prison sentences under this law. The report indicates that legal pressures have not replaced physical threats but have emerged as a new challenge alongside them.
On March 8, during the ‘Women’s March’ in Islamabad, police detained journalists covering the event for nearly eight hours. The PPF expressed concern over the disregard for existing media protection laws. Even during arrests, journalists were asked to surrender their electronic devices, violating their privacy rights.
The report also reveals that female journalists in Pakistan are being targeted through AI-generated content. The PPF documented several instances in 2025-26 where fabricated material was circulated online about female journalists.
Last November, journalist Benazir Shah reported that an AI-generated video of her was shared from an account followed by the federal information minister. The PPF emphasized that such attacks aim not just to challenge the work of female journalists but to tarnish their reputations in deeply personal and gendered ways.
The report mentions that the withholding of government advertisements from ‘Dawn’ was an attempt to exert financial pressure on the newspaper. The Urdu daily ‘Sahafat’ reportedly faced similar treatment. The Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA) has also issued “show cause notices” to media outlets that challenged or violated existing “red lines.”
A report from ‘Dawn’ states, “This report views these failures in the context of a broader pattern of impunity. While the establishment of the ‘Federal Commission for the Safety of Journalists and Media Professionals’ in November 2025 was a welcome step, it warns that it must now be made truly functional, requiring adequate resources and genuine autonomy.”
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