Restrictions on media
Head of PPP Media Cell
Journalists Beyond Boarders (BRF) in its yearly report ((2021) has decried and disparaged the government for its consistent drive of tightening the screws around Pakistani media with no sign of expiration to review the policy that is indeed tyrannical and unacceptable for being at variance with the constitutional imperatives. The report ranked Pakistan at 145 in the World Press Freedom Index indicating slid than the previous year confirming the government has been on the path of gagging media in uniformity though slowly but surely. The report is indeed a damning indictment of the government’s policy to deny the fundamental rights to the citizens of Pakistan-- freedom of speech and expression. The report quoted an increasing number of gruesome practices of harassment and intimidation of journalists including their murder during the year. The report speaks volumes of authorities’ cruel practices like brazen censorship, disruption in the distributions of newspapers, jamming of TV channels, punitive distribution of government advertisements, and even private, forcing the media houses to mend their ways or else face the financial ruin to die. Yet, official assertion of free media may exemplify in its naked form as barefaced-lie.