Uwazi

Police in Pakistan’s northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province have fired tear gas at protesters as they attempted to reach Islamabad to press their demands over the killing of four teenage boys in their region near the border with Afghanistan.

About 3,000 demonstrators from the rural area around the town of Jani Khel launched a protest caravan early on March 28 that was composed of cars, trucks, motorcycles, and the bodies of the four boys.

But the group was stopped by a police blockade on a bridge across the Tochi River, about 15 kilometers south of the town of Bannu.

The standoff is taking place in former tribal regions of Pakistan that were merged into Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province in 2018.

Mohsin Dawar, a deputy who represents North Waziristan in Pakistan’s national parliament, was detained by local police in the city of Karak as he tried to travel to the scene of the standoff at the Tochi River bridge.

Dawar had complained on March 26 that "instead of listening to the demands of the protesters, the state has chosen to block roads around the area to stop them from moving out if they choose to take their protest to Islamabad."

Meanwhile, in the city of Domail about 25 kilometers east of Bannu, hundreds of demonstrators threatened on March 28 to block the Indus Highway between Peshawar and the city of Dera Ismail Khan unless the protestors were allowed to proceed to Islamabad.

A government negotiating team has been meeting in recent days with protest leaders and tribal elders from Jani Khel, which is on the border of the former tribal region of North Waziristan.

The angry residents want a government guarantee that the Taliban and other militants would not be allowed to operate in the area any more. They are also demanding an investigation into a military official responsible for security in the area, and for that official to be transferred.

The government team has agreed to a demand for the families of the four slain teenagers to receive compensation funds from the government.

But protest leaders told RFE/RL's Radio Mashaal on March 28 that the government team was unable to offer the security guarantees they are demanding.

Many of the demonstrators in the blocked protest caravan were part of a sit-in protest that began in Jani Khel on March 21 after the bullet-riddled corpses of four teenagers were discovered in a field.

Relatives said their bodies bore signs of torture when they were dug out of the ground after reportedly being found by a shepherd's dogs.

The boys – aged between 13 and 17 years old -- had disappeared three weeks earlier when they went out to hunt birds.

RFERL

A local court in Karachi has directed the police to file a First Information Report (FIR) against the organizers of the Islamabad Women’s March.

The court’s order comes a day after a local Peshawar court ordered the registration of an FIR against the organizers of the march for allegedly making insulting posters with degrading words.

Karachi Additional District and Sessions Judge South passed the order on an application to the Station House Officer (SHO) City Courts Police Station against Advocate GM Arain under Section 22A of the Pakistan Penal Code against the SHO of the same police station, who allegedly refused to grant application for an FIR against the organizers of the Aurtat march.

Section 22A gives the courts the power to make orders under Justice for Peace and may order the filing of an FIR for failure to register a case.

Petitioner said he and other members of the Karachi Bar Association watched the march on a TV channel that was being broadcast from the federal capital.

He said that during the march, inappropriate words were used against religious saints and their spouses and provocative slogans were chanted.

The petitioner added that obscene and anti-Islamic slogans were raised during the march.

He said that the members of Karachi Bar Association had passed a resolution condemning such measures in the name of women’s emancipation and women’s rights by the organizers and participants.

A local court in Peshawar ordered the registration of a first information report (FIR) on Thursday against organisers of this year's Aurat March in Islamabad for allegedly making "derogatory remarks" against Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) and Hazrat Aisha and displaying "obscene posters".

Judge Syed Shaukatullah Shah passed the order on a petition filed by five lawyers — Ibrar Hussain, Israr Hussain, Kashif Ahmed Tarakai, Siyad Hussain, and Adnan Gohar.

The petition was filed under Section 22-A of the Code of Criminal Procedure, which empowers the court to act as 'Justice of Peace" and order the registration of an FIR against an offence in case of the police's failure to do so.

In their petition, the lawyers alleged that during the Aurat March 2021 which was held on March 8, "derogatory remarks were used in respect of Holy Prophet Hazrat Muhammad (PBUH) and Bibi Aisha beside display of un-Islamic and obscene posters on the instructions of organisers which hurt the feelings and sentiments of all Muslims including [them]."

They claimed they had watched the "derogatory and un-Islamic material" while they were on the court's premises in Peshawar and had later filed an application with the SHO East Cantt but he was "reluctant" to register an FIR.

The judge stated that the petitioner's arguments were heard and the record was examined. He directed the SHO East Cantt to "register FIR of the occurrence as reported by the petitioners under the relevant law".

Doctored videos Earlier this month, a video from the demonstration held in Karachi was doctored to falsely show participants raising blasphemous slogans and widely shared online.

The orga­ni­sers of Aurat March clarified that the participants of the march did not raise such slogans and their video was edited to defame their struggle.

People also mistook flags of the Women Democratic Front (WDF) at the Islamabad March for the French Tricolour after which the organisers issued a clarification.

After protests in the capital calling for registration of FIRs against organisers and participants of the Aurat March, Minister for Religious Affairs Noorul Haq Qadri had said that "controversial material" shared on social media concerning the march was being investigated.

Aurat March has become an annual feature since 2018 and every year faces backlash from certain religio-political parties, who have been opposing the event.

The marches are organised in major cities to highlight issues facing women and condemning incidents of violence against them as well as gender discrimination, economic exploitation and misogyny.

Following this year's march on International Women’s Day, heated debates were once again seen on social media for and against the march.

Bolnews | Dawn

Authorities have closed a key road outside a major population center in northwestern Pakistan after residents threatened to take their protest over the violent deaths of four teens to Islamabad.

Angry locals from the rural town of Jani Khel are in negotiations with local authorities to demand greater security guarantees and a thorough and credible investigation into the killings, which are at the center of a weeklong sit-in protest.

The residents said on March 26 that security forces placed heavy shipping containers on a local bridge, closing it to traffic.

The bridge links Jani Khel to the nearby city of Bannu, a major population center in the province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

A lawmaker from a nearby area accused state authorities of blocking the road to keep the protest from spreading.

“Instead of listening to the demands of the protesters, the state has chosen to block roads around the area to stop them from moving out if they choose to take their protest to Islamabad,” lawmaker Mohsin Dawar, who represents North Waziristan, which borders Jani Khel, tweeted on March 26.

Many of those same residents began the sit-in on March 21 after the bullet-riddled corpses of four teenagers were discovered in a field some three weeks after they disappeared while hunting birds.

The bodies of the youngsters -- where were between 13 and 17 years old -- were reportedly dug out of the field after a shepherd's dogs found them.

The protesters' primary demand is a government guarantee that Taliban and other militants won't be allowed to operate in the area.

The protesters also want an official complaint filed against a specific security official posted to the town.

Police have already announced a murder investigation.

Mahmood Khan, the chief minister, the most senior elected official in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, assured protesters on March 25 that the government will investigate.

“I want to promise you that we will hunt those criminals responsible for this heinous act,” he tweeted on March 25.

Authorities have also agreed to pay compensation to the families of the slain teens.

RFERL

Media union leader Rana Muhammad Azeem, secretary general of the Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists (PFUJ), received a death threat after exposing a mafia gangster in a television appearance. The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) joins its Pakistan affiliate to call for an urgent investigation into the threat.

Media union leader Rana Muhammad Azeem, secretary general of the Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists (PFUJ), received a death threat after exposing a mafia gangster in a television appearance. The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) joins its Pakistan affiliate to call for an urgent investigation into the threat.

The PFUJ said on March 26 that its Secretary General Rana Muhammad Azeem received death- threat from a gangster after exposing mafia in a recent TV talk-show broadcastedon 92 News Channel. Earlier ,the Karachi-based Urdu newspaper had published the warrant notice against Rana Muhammad Azeem on February 28 leveling allegations of criminal conduct against the secretary general of the Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists (PFUJ).

The PFUJ said threats to working journalists had become more common in Pakistan despite repeated protests and activism by journalists. It also accused the Pakistan government of failing to provide security to the journalists.

IFJ

The 31-year-old journalist received bullet injuries to the stomach, arm and knee as he waited in line for a barber shop on March 17 in Saleh Putt Sakhar, a town in interior Sindh province. According to the PFUJ, the assailants came by motorcycle and car and fled from the scene after the attack. The seriously injured journalist was rushed to Civil Hospital Sakhar for the treatment but died the next day on March 18.

According to police, an investigation team under the Deputy Superintendent of Police / Sub-Divisional Police Officer (SDPO) of Rohri, Hazoor Bux Solangi, was formed to investigate the case. Police also informed they were collecting evidence from the scene and recording statements from witnesses as part of the investigation.

Following the brutal murder of Lalwani, the journalist community in Pakistan held protests demanding the Pakistan government launch a probe on the case.

Lalwani was a vocal journalist and frequently raise issues of the Hindu minority in Pakistan. He also wrote critically that Pakistani Government policies were biased against minorities.

PFUJ Secretary General, Rana M Azeem, said: “Sindh government has failed to protect the journalists while the local police are not paying attention despite repeated requests. We demand the government to take action and arrest the killers otherwise a country wide protest will be launched.”

IFJ General Secretary Anthony Bellanger, said: “The IFJ urges the Pakistan government to carry out the impartial investigation into the murder of Ajay Lalwani.”

IFJ

A court notice published in The Daily Jang newspaper on February 28 has levelled allegations of criminal conduct against the secretary general of the Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists (PFUJ). The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) and its Pakistan affiliate the Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists (PFUJ) express concern at attempts to silence the voice of the union leader.

The Karachi-based Urdu newspaper published the warrant notice against Rana Muhammad Azeem, which according to the daily newspaper was a paid notice by the court. The notice also detailed the personal address and telephone number of the leader.

The PFUJ strongly condemned the alleged registration of a case against its secretary general and urged the concerned authorities to look into the “allegedly false case made in an effort to silence the leaders’ voice for the rights of the media workers”. It also said that Rana Azeem had been tagged with some other renowned persons for criticism on the national media channel during a talk show.

The notice with the signature of second Additional District and Sessions Judge, Ashraf Hussain Khawaja, alleges that Rana Azeem committed a crime or is believed to commit a crime ‘punishable’ under Pakistan Penal Code yet fails to detail the alleged crime. The notice also refers to the leader as a guest and analyst of the television show “Kahra Sach”, which he has been a regular commentator on over several years.

IFJ

Pakistani authorities have expelled the leader‏ of a civil rights movement campaigning for the country's ethnic Pashtun minority from the southwestern province of Balochistan after he attended a condolence ceremony for a slain political leader despite a ban on entering the region.

Activists of the Pashtun Tahafuz Movement (PTM) said Manzoor Pashteen and other PTM leaders traveled to the town of Chaman on March 1 and that security forces escorted them out of the province after he secretly attended the ceremony.

Asad Khan Achakzai, spokesman for the secular Awami National Party (ANP) in Balochistan, was laid to rest in Chaman the previous day amid province-wide protests by party supporters.

Achakzai's body was discovered on February 27 on the outskirts of the provincial capital, Quetta, five months after he went missing.

Police has said a member of the paramilitary forces had confessed to the kidnapping and guided the investigators to the place where the body was found.

In December, Balochistan’s government banned Pashteen from entering the province for a period of 90 days citing security reasons. The ban was later extended for an unspecified period.

The PTM has campaigned since 2018 for the civil rights of Pakistan’s estimated 35 million ethnic Pashtuns, many of whom live near the border of Afghanistan where the military has conducted campaigns it says defeated the Pakistani Taliban.

The movement has attracted tens of thousands of people to public rallies in recent years to denounce the powerful Pakistani Army's heavy-handed tactics that have killed thousands of Pashtun civilians and forced millions more to abandon their homes since 2003.

International rights groups say authorities have banned peaceful rallies organized by the PTM and some of its leading members have been arbitrarily detained and prevented from traveling within the country. Some members have also faced charges of sedition and cybercrimes.

RFERL

In a brazen daylight attack, masked terrorists shot dead four women vocational trainers and injured their driver near Mirali in North Waziristan tribal district on Monday.

Police said a vehicle carrying five women was driving through a village near Mirali when the gunmen opened fire on it, killing four of them on the spot.

The slain trainers were identified as Naheed Bibi, Irshad Bibi, Ayesha Bibi and Javeria Bibi. They belonged to the nearby Bannu district. The driver of the vehicle, Abdul Khaliq, suffered bullet injuries in the attack. He is under treatment at a local hospital.

District Police Officer Shafiullah Gandapur issued a press release after the killing of the four women trainers, stating that the four were targeted and killed by terrorists in Eppi village near Mirali.

The police statement said that the driver suffered injuries in the attack while one woman trainer, Mariam Bibi, survived as she took shelter in the village. Bodies of the four women were taken to the tehsil headquarters hospital in Mirali town.

Earlier, police had said that the women were working for an NGO to give vocational training to local women in Eppi village.

Later, the DPO changed his statement and said that the women were working for a technical institute based in Bannu to develop vocational skills of the local women. He said that the NGO had signed a memorandum of understanding with the institute to give vocational training to women of the area.

The NGOs office in Peshawar said that the women killed in the attack were not affiliated with the organisation. An official of the NGO told Dawn that the four women were attached to a technical college in Bannu.

He said that the women trainers had proceeded from Bannu to Eppi village to give vocational training to the local women. He said that his organisation had been working on a project for skill development of the womenfolk of the area.

In September last year, some unidentified gunmen had killed a lady health worker in Khaisur area near Mirali. Mirali was the bastion of local and foreign insurgents before operation Zarb-i-Azb was launched in June 2014.

A police official said that on Sunday night gunmen opened fire on a vehicle in Shewa area near Mirali and killed its driver named Wali Gul. The gunmen also kidnapped 10 people including six non-locals.

Unicef condemns attack

The United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund has expressed shock over the killing of the four women.

“UNICEF condemns in the strongest possible terms this senseless attack on women and aid workers and joins the families in mourning this tragic loss of lives. The perpetrators must be brought to justice,” said Unicef Representative in Pakistan, Aida Girma.

“Unicef is saddened and shocked at the reported killing of four women who were reportedly staff members of Bravo College, Bannu, and they were travelling to North Waziristan, one of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s merged districts, earlier on Monday. Their driver was reportedly injured in the attack after unidentified assailants fired on their vehicle,” Unicef said in a statement issued in Islamabad.

Dawn

On 1 February 2020, the Peshawar High Court dismissed human rights defender Idris Khattak's petition challenging the jurisdiction of the Field General Court-Martial on his case. The verdict means that the human rights defender’s trial, which was paused in the Military Court, will now resume. While Pakistan is a party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), the military courts have not met their obligations under ICCPR, with the right to a public hearing not guaranteed, the death penalty being handed out after unfair trials and the absence of right to appeal to civilian courts.

The human rights defender was forcibly disappeared on 13 November 2019. His whereabouts were not known until 17 June 2020, when the Joint Investigation Tribunal in Islamabad, tasked with inquiring into cases of enforced disappearance, informed the human rights defender’s family that he was being held by the Pakistan Military Intelligence and was being tried under the Official Secrets Act, 1923.

FLD

On 2 February 2021, human rights defender Muhammad Ismail was arrested at the Anti-Terrorism Court-III in Peshawar, following the cancellation of his interim pre-arrest bail in a case lodged by the Counter-Terrorism Department. The First Information Report (FIR) brought against the defender charges him under Sections 11-N, 124-A, 120-B of the Pakistan Penal Code, which relate to sedition and criminal conspiracy, and 7(g)(i) of the Anti-terrorism Act of 1997. These charges carry heavy prison sentences. It is believed that Muhammad Ismail is currently in the custody of the Counter-Terrorism Department.

Muhammed Ismail is the Secretary-General of the Pakistan NGO Forum (PNF), an umbrella body of civil society organisations (CSOs) in Pakistan. He has been critical of human rights violations in the country, particularly the ill-treatment of his daughter, human rights defender Gulalai Ismail.

Muhammad Ismail has been the target of ongoing police and judicial harassment for over two years. The human rights defender’s prosecution is a reprisal for his work, and the human rights work of his daughter Gulalai Ismail – an outspoken critic of human rights abuses by Pakistani authorities. Gulalai Ismail was forced to flee Pakistan in September 2019 due to threats to her safety. Ever since, her family and colleagues in Pakistan have been targetted. Multiple FIRs have been filed against Muhammad Ismail and his wife Uzlifat Ismail, including on anti-terror charges. In October 2019 Muhammad Ismail was abducted by unidentified men from outside the Peshawar High Court. He was later found in the custody of the Federal Investigation Agency’s Cyber Crimes Unit. Muhammad Ismail and his wife have been placed on an exit control list preventing them from leaving Pakistan.

Despite being released on bail in at least one case, authorities have continued to to target him. The State has consistently objected to bail and sought to file new charges against the defender in an attempt to further harass him, despite his ill health. Muhammad Ismail contracted COVID-19 in late 2020 and has not fully recovered. He requires constant care and medical supervision, neither of which will be available in an overcrowded jail.

Front Line Defenders, along with other human rights organisations, has previously condemned the targetting of Muhammad Ismail. Front Line Defenders urges the authorities in Pakistan to immediately drop all charges and unconditionally release Muhammad Ismail, as it believes that the human rights defender is being targeted solely as a result of his legitimate and peaceful work in the defence of human rights. It urges the authorities to remove all restrictions on the free movement of Muhammad Ismail and his wife Uzlifat Ismail, and cease all further forms of harassment against the defender, as it is believed that these measures constitute a direct transgression of his rights.

FLD | FLD

Pakistani security forces have detained and forcibly expelled a prominent ethnic Pashtun rights activist, Sanna Ejaz, from the restive province of Balochistan.

Ejaz is a leader of the Pashtun Tahafuz Movement (PTM), a civil rights movement that has come under a growing government crackdown.

Video footage uploaded on social media showed security forces ushering Ejaz into a vehicle on January 17.

Moments before she was detained in the district of Zhob, Ejaz told RFE/RL that paramilitary forces notified her that she was barred from entering Balochistan, which borders Afghanistan and Iran.

“They are saying my presence could cause unrest,” she told RFE/RL.

Ejaz, a resident of the neighboring province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, said she had travelled to Balochistan to launch a library for women.

The library was established by Waak, a movement cofounded by Ejaz and dedicated to promoting women’s rights and education.

Police said the provincial government in November 2020 issued a notice banning PTM leaders, including Ejaz, from traveling to Balochistan for 90 days.

Balochistan is the scene of a separatist insurgency and a brutal state crackdown that has killed thousands of people since 2004.

Activists claim Pakistan’s powerful military has committed widespread abuses in Balochistan, including enforced disappearances, extrajudicial killings of political activists and suspected separatists, arbitrary arrests, and torture. The province is home to a sizeable Pashtun community.

Ejaz was among several PTM leaders charged with making anti-state speeches during an unsanctioned rally in the port city of Karachi, in Sindh Province, on December 6, 2020.

Among them was Ali Wazir, a lawmaker and PTM leader, who was arrested on sedition charges over accusations he made anti-state comments during the rally.

Wazir remains in police custody. He is expected to be presented before an anti-terrorism court.

The PTM has campaigned since 2018 for the civil rights of Pakistan’s estimated 35 million ethnic Pashtuns, many of whom live near the border of Afghanistan where the military has conducted campaigns it says defeated the Pakistani Taliban.

The movement has attracted tens of thousands of people to public rallies in recent years to denounce the powerful Pakistani Army's heavy-handed tactics that have killed thousands of Pashtun civilians and forced millions more to abandon their homes since 2003.

International rights groups say authorities have banned peaceful rallies organized by the PTM and some of its leading members have been arbitrarily detained and prevented from traveling within the country. Some members have also faced charges of sedition and cybercrimes.

RFERL

Pakistani authorities have rearrested a prominent ethnic Pashtun rights activist who is facing sedition charges almost a week after he was released on bail.

Police and the civil rights group say Said Alam Mahsud, a leader of the Pashtun Tahafuz Movement (PTM), was taken into custody in the northwestern town of Dera Ismail Khan on January 18.

He was first arrested early this month in the city of Peshawar before being released on bail on January 13.

A PTM leader, Alamzeb Mehsud, said Mahsud had been charged with "sedition, making anti-state comments, and addressing unsanctioned rallies" in two cases registered in 2019.

Mahsud’s arrest comes a day after another PTM leader, Sanna Ejaz, was detained and forcibly expelled from the southwestern province of Balochistan, amid a growing government crackdown on the movement.

The PTM has campaigned since 2018 for the civil rights of Pakistan’s estimated 35 million ethnic Pashtuns, many of whom live near the border with Afghanistan where the military has conducted campaigns that it says defeated the Pakistani Taliban.

The movement has attracted tens of thousands of people to public rallies in recent years to denounce the powerful Pakistani Army's heavy-handed tactics that have killed thousands of Pashtun civilians and forced millions more to abandon their homes since 2003.

International rights groups say authorities have banned peaceful rallies organized by the PTM and some of its leading members have been arbitrarily detained and prevented from traveling within the country.

Some members have also faced charges of sedition and cybercrimes.

RFERL

Thousands of Pakistani Internet users have called for boycotts of these two Urdu-language services and have threatened their journalists in the course of a two-week-old hate and defamation campaign.

A video posted on 2 January on Siasat.pk, a news and discussion site that supports Pakistan’s ruling party and armed forces, attacks the “personal opinions and political inclinations” of BBC Urdu’s journalists. Shared by thousands of people on Twitter, it also accuses the BBC of pursuing an editorial policy that is “against the army and the government.”

The surnames, first names, jobs and Twitter account details of ten BBC Urdu journalists were posted online at the same time as the video. Analysis of the comments indicates that this campaign is being orchestrated in reprisal for several editorials and op-ed pieces regarded as overly critical of the authorities.

“Surprise”

One of the 10 journalists attacked in the video is Asma Shirazi, who received the Peter Mackler Award for Courageous and Ethical Journalism in 2014. “I’m told to be less critical,” she told RSF. “This is not the first time I’ve received such threats. I’m being bombarded because of my opinions. This online vilification is part of a grand design to silence professional and independent journalists.”

Shirazi said she had received threatening calls. By way of a threat, one caller told her that she could “get surprise” if she did not stop writing critical op-ed pieces for BBC Urdu. “I don’t know what surprise they could give me,” she said. ”One surprise might be the discovery of drugs or explosives in my car during a roadside search.”

Threats were also made against Pakistani journalists working for The Independent in late December after its Urdu website posted a story about the deaths of four Pakistani soldiers in a helicopter crash. They were criticized for not referring to the dead soldiers as “martyrs” – the term that the Pakistani armed forces try to impose in such cases.

When reached by RSF, the editor of The Independent’s Urdu-language news site confirmed that his staff were concerned about this hate campaign. Thousands of Internet users have been calling for the site to be banned using the #BoycottIndyUrdu hashtag.

“Extremely dangerous”

“These online hate campaigns, orchestrated by trolls at the military high command’s behest, not only threaten press freedom but are also extremely dangerous for the journalists who are the targets of the death threats,” said Daniel Bastard, the head of RSF’s Asia-Pacific desk.

“Calling for journalists to be murdered, with the aim of intimidating and silencing anyone critical of the authorities, is completely unacceptable. We urge the federal government to disown such calls, and we ask the prosecutor’s office to initiate proceedings against all those responsible for these threats.”

RSF accused the Pakistani authorities of complicity by failing to take action to stop the online harassment of outspoken women journalists in August 2020, when the harassment was condemned by a women journalists collective.

Pakistan is ranked 145th out of 180 countries in RSF's 2020 World Press Freedom Index.

RSF

Pakistani police have arrested another member of a civil rights movement campaigning for the country's ethnic Pashtun minority amid an apparent crackdown on the group.

A member of the Pashtun Tahafuz Movement (PTM) told RFE/RL that Muhammad Sher Mehsud was taken away late on December 20 when officers raided his house in the port city of Karachi.

A police official, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed the arrest but could not provide details about the charges against Mehsud, who was one of the organizers of an unsanctioned rally in Karachi on December 6.

The day after the gathering, police filed a case against as many as 19 PTM members, including a lawmaker and leader of the movement, Ali Wazir, who faces sedition charges over accusations he made anti-state comments during the Karachi rally.

Wazir is to remain in police custody until December 30 when he will be presented before an anti-terrorism court.

His family have said his life is in danger in custody, a claim that the police officials reject.

Police on December 18 arrested another PTM leader, Noorullah Tareen, hours after thousands of supporters of the rights’ group protested in a dozen cities and towns of Pakistan against Wazir’s arrest.

The PTM, which has campaigned since 2018 for the civil rights of Pakistan’s estimated 35 million ethnic Pashtuns, has attracted tens of thousands of people to public rallies in recent years to denounce the powerful Pakistani Army's heavy-handed tactics in its fight against the Pakistani Taliban and other militant groups in the country's northwest.

International rights groups say Pakistani authorities have banned peaceful rallies organized by the PTM and some of its leading members have been arbitrarily detained and prevented from traveling within the country. Some members have also faced charges of sedition and cybercrimes.

Ali Wazir, a lawmaker and leader of a civil rights movement campaigning for Pakistan’s ethnic Pashtun minority, has appeared before a judge following his arrest in the northwestern city of Peshawar on anti-state charges.

Another leader of the Pashtun Tahafuz Movement (PTM), Said Alam Mehsud, told RFE/RL on December 17 that the judge granted a request by Wazir’s lawyers to let their client fly to the port city of Karachi, where he is facing charges.

It was not immediately clear when Wazir would be taken to Karachi.

Earlier, police officials in Karachi told RFE/RL that Wazir, PTM chief Manzoor Pashteen, and two other leaders of the movement, lawmaker Mohsin Dawar and Sanna Ejaz, had been charged with making anti-state speeches during an unsanctioned rally in the city on December 6.

Wazir was arrested in Peshawar on December 16 after he attended a gathering marking the sixth anniversary of the massacre of more than 150 people at a Peshawar school in December 2014.

It was not immediately clear why police had not arrested the other PTM leaders accused in the case.

Under Pakistani law, lawmakers are immune from arrest until the National Assembly speaker or the Senate chairman approves it.

Police officials in Karachi told RFE/RL that Wazir’s arrest was sanctioned by the lower house’s speaker, Asad Qaisar, who has not commented on the matter.

The PTM has campaigned since 2018 for the civil rights of Pakistan’s estimated 35 million ethnic Pashtuns, many of whom live near the border of Afghanistan where the military has conducted campaigns it says defeated the Pakistani Taliban.

The movement has attracted tens of thousands of people to public rallies in recent years to denounce the powerful Pakistani Army's heavy-handed tactics that have killed thousands of Pashtun civilians and forced millions more to abandon their homes since 2003.

International rights groups say authorities have banned peaceful rallies organized by the PTM and some of its leading members have been arbitrarily detained and prevented from traveling within the country. Some members have also faced charges of sedition and cybercrimes.

Another prominent ethnic Pashtun rights activist, Said Alam Mahsud, has been arrested in Pakistan on charges of making “anti-state” and “anti-military” comments.

Sanna Ejaz, a leader of the Pashtun Tahafuz Movement (PTM), told RFE/RL that Mahsud appeared before a court in Peshawar on January 4 where a judge ordered him remanded in custody for four days.

Mahsud was arrested at his home in the northwestern city late on January 3 after he attended a protest earlier in the day demanding the release of other PTM leaders and activists from custody.

In a video widely circulated on Facebook and Twitter, Mahsud is seen greeting the policemen in Pashto and then asking, “Am I being arrested?” After a policeman says “yes,” he responds “no problem” in English and then accompanies them.

PTM leader Manzoor Pashteen called Mahsud’s arrest an “extremely oppressive” act while Mohsin Dawar, a lawmaker and PTM leader, denounced what he called an “undeclared crackdown" against the group.

PTM activists staged demonstrations on January 3 in several cities and towns in Pakistan, demanding the release of recently arrested leaders and members of the PTM, which has campaigned since 2018 for the civil rights of Pakistan’s estimated 35 million ethnic Pashtuns.

Ali Wazir, a lawmaker and PTM leader, has been arrested on sedition charges over accusations he made anti-state comments during an unsanctioned rally in Karachi on December 6.

His arrest triggered mass protests in dozens of cities and towns across Pakistan on December 18. After the protests, two other PTM members were arrested in Karachi.

The PTM has attracted tens of thousands of people to public rallies in recent years to denounce the powerful Pakistani Army's heavy-handed tactics in its fight against the Pakistani Taliban and other militant groups in the country's northwest.

Gandhara

Activist Ammar Ali Jan on Friday narrowly escaped arrest from Lahore's Charing Cross, where he was attending a student protest.

The activist had left the protest venue along with his friends in a car which was followed by a police van. Jan's vehicle was stopped by law enforcement officials at Gulberg Main Boulevard, from where he was taken to a police check post.

Following negotiations with policemen, Jan and his friends were allowed to leave with the assurance that they would appear before the station house officer of the Civil Lines police station within two hours.

In a statement to Dawn, however, Jan said that his lawyer would appear on his behalf and the activist will approach the court for pre-arrest bail on Monday.

Jan's arrest orders were issued by the Lahore deputy commissioner on Thursday under Section 3 (power to arrest and detain suspected persons) of the Maintenance of Public Order Ordinance. According to the order, Jan was a "potential danger to public peace, law and order situation" and must be detained "in order to keep the law and order situation in the city". Under the charge, the activist would remain under arrest for 30 days.

"There is credible information that [Jan], along with his accomplices, will create law and order situation and cause harassment among the general public," the order read. Jan was the only person whose arrest orders were issued.

The Lahore-based academic was attending a protest, which was being held to highlight the issues being faced by students in Pakistan. Every year, students and activists come together to arrange a Student Solidarity March across the country, however, this year a protest was held due to Covid-19.

Dawn

On 9 November 2020, transgender rights defender Nayyab Ali was physically assaulted androbbed at her home in Islamabad by two unidentified, armed men. The defender, after a struggle,was able to fend off the attackers but suffered serious injuries. Nayyab Ali had recently been vocalabout the increased targeting of the transgender community in Pakistan through her social mediapages, and had since been receiving death threats. A First Information Report (FIR) was filedregarding the attack at the Golra police station on 10 November. Nayyab Ali is a transgender rights defender and Chairperson of the All Pakistan TransgenderElection Network. She also manages the ‘Khawaja Sira Community Centre’ in Okara, which offersa basic literacy and numeracy programme, vocational training, life skills education and drivingclasses for the transgender community. In 2018, Nayyab was one of four transgender candidateswho ran for Pakistan's general elections. Nayyab has also been leading the advocacy efforts forthe approval of the Pakistan’s National Transgender Rights Protection Policy. She is a winner of theGalas Award in 2020, for her human rights work. The day prior to her attack, Nayyab wasnominated for the APCOM Hero award for her work on transgender rights. On 9 November 2020, two unidentified men, armed with knives, entered Nayyab Ali’s home inIslamabad. The defender was bound and beaten for nearly three hours. The attackers forced her tosign her cheque book and took her identity card, bank cards, jewellery, and devices, includingphone and laptop. The men threatened to kill the defender if she continued to raise her voice forvictims of violence in the transgender community. An FIR was lodged by the Golra police only thefollowing day (10 November), after much pressure from civil society.Over the past several months, there have been increasing physical attacks on transgender personsand defenders in Pakistan, including in the national capital Islamabad. Nayyab Ali has been vocalabout an attack on another transgender rights defender in Islamabad on 31 October 2020. Shelaunched a campaign on social media demanding justice for this case, and denounced the lack ofpolice action and impunity afforded to those responsible for such attacks. The human rightsdefender believes that the attack against her is due to her vocal campaign for justice. So far, theattacks against transgender community members has gone unpunished due to entrenchedstereotypes and a lack of will to protect those most vulnerable. Front Line Defenders condemns the attack, intimidation and death threats against transgenderrights defender Nayyab Ali, and the transgender community in Pakistan, as it believes she is beingtargeted for her legitimate and peaceful work in defence of human rights, specifically on the issueof transgender rights, in Pakistan.

FLD

Unidentified gunmen have killed a local union leader in Pakistan’s southwestern province of Balochistan.

Police said on November 10 that Allah Dad Tarin was shot dead while on his way home after offering evening prayers in a mosque in Pashin district.

The assailants fled the scene after the attack, police added.

No one immediately claimed responsibility.

As general-secretary of the Balochistan Traders Association, Tarin was known for his struggle to protect the rights of traders and shop owners in Balochistan.

He was also a member of a Pashtun nationalist party, the Pashtunkhwa Milli Awami Party. The union said shops and markets would remain closed in the provincial capital, Quetta, on November 10 in protest of Tarin’s slaying.

Balochistan government spokesman Liaquat Shahwani pledged that Tarin’s killers would be brought to justice.

Resource-rich Balochistan, which borders Afghanistan and Iran, has been plagued by sectarian violence, Islamist militant attacks, and a separatist insurgency that has led to thousands of casualties since 2004.

RFERL

Authorities in Pakistan's southwestern province of Balochistan have arrested a local social-media activist and newspaper columnist on charges of interfering in the work of police.

Bayazid Kharoti appeared before a court in the provincial capital, Quetta, on November 5 that ordered him remanded in custody for five days, his lawyer, Enayat Kasi, told RFE/RL.

Kasi said he had filed a bail application and that the request would be heard the next day.

The Pakistani media watchdog Freedom Network denounced what it called Kharoti's "unlawful arrest."

Kharoti's friends and family sources have said he went missing in Quetta at noon on November 4.

A spokesman for the Balochistan provincial government announced Kharoti's arrest on Twitter after news of his disappearance spread on social media.

The spokesman, Liaquat Shahwani, said that Kharoti is accused of illegally entering the headquarters of the paramilitary Levies forces in Quetta and of using inappropriate language after being ordered to leave.

"My brother is Kidnapped by unknown people I would like to request all the social activist and journalist to raise your voice," his younger brother, Basit Khan Kharoti, earlier wrote on Twitter.

Kharoti runs a Facebook page and WhatsApp group called "Choti Chiri" (Little Bird) and writes columns in Pakistani newspapers.

He often criticizes the government and security forces in Balochistan and reports on alleged corruption.

Balochistan's government issued a statement on August 5 ordering government employees to stay away from social media pages and WhatsApp groups that allegedly spread "misinformation and propaganda" against the provincial government.

Kharoti at the time told RFE/RL that he was raising issues Balochistan is facing because Pakistan's national media did not pay enough attention to the province's problems.

RFERL

CIVICUS: World Alliance for Citizen Participation, Front Line Defenders, FIDH, in the framework of the Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders, the World Organisation Against Torture(OMCT), and the International Service for Human Rights strongly condemn the deliberate targeting of human rights defender Muhammed Ismail and his wife Uzlifat Ismail, the parents of woman human rights defender Gulalai Ismail. The authorities must halt the ongoing judicial harassment against Gulalai Ismail and her family, which is a direct reprisal due to her human rights work. Gulalai has multiple criminal complaints filed against her, including under regressive anti-terror laws. Since she was forced to leave Pakistan due to concerns for her safety, her parents have been targeted under the Penal Code, anti-terrorism laws and cyber security legislation. In the most recent incident, Pakistan authorities approached the Anti Terrorism Court in Peshawar, and filed a new case with charges that include sedition and terrorism. On 30 September 2020, the court charged the three defenders.

Muhammed Ismail is the Secretary-General of the Pakistan NGO Forum (PNF), an umbrella body of civil society organizations (CSOs) in Pakistan. He has been critical of human rights violations in the country, particularly the treatment of his daughter, human rights defender Gulalai Ismail. The woman human rights defender and her family have been targeted by Pakistani authorities in response to a speech she made in 2019, criticising the state/military response to the rape and murder of a minor girl. Since then, several First Information Reports have been subsequently filed against them, forcing Gulalai Ismail to leave Pakistan for her safety.

On 2 July 2020, the Anti-Terrorism Court (ATC) in Peshawar had acquitted Gulalai Ismail and her parents, Muhammad Ismail and Uzlifat Ismail, of charges related to financial terrorism. Two months since, the authorities moved the court and filed the same case with additional charges of terrorism, sedition and conspiracy against the State.

On 30 September 2020, the Anti-terrorism court in Peshawar heard the case and charged Muhammad Ismail, Uzlifat Ismail and Gulalai Ismail under Sections 11-N, 124-A, 120-B of the Pakistan Penal Code, which relate to sedition and criminal conspiracy, and 7(g)(i) of the Anti-terrorism Act of 1997. These charges carry heavy prison sentences. The defenders pleaded not guilty and are to appear for their next hearing on 26 October 2020.

Further to the court case, the Federal Bureau of Revenue has sent over ten letters to Muhammad Ismail and his wife, Uzlifat Ismail, asking them to file taxes for the past six years. However, Muhammad Ismail has not been running any business and does not have a regular monthly income and his wife is a home maker. The last date to file the tax was mentioned as 31 August 2020, however, the letters were only received on 1 September 2020. The family believe that this delay was intentional to further target them with additional legal proceedings.

Less than a year ago, on 24 October 2019, Muhammed Ismail was forcibly abducted from outside the Peshawar High Court by unidentified men. He was later found in the custody of Federal Investigation Agency’s Cyber Crimes Unit. He was charged under the Pakistan Electronic Crimes Act for “hate speech” and “spreading false information against government institutions”. The defender was granted conditional bail after spending a month in detention. However, on 20 April 2020, the defender was summoned for a court hearing after the Federal Investigation agency filed an appeal at the Peshawar High Court to revoke the conditional bail that was granted to the defender on 25 November 2019.

Muhammad Ismail and Uzlifat Ismail have also been placed on a government Exit Control List (ECL), preventing them from leaving Pakistan. Uzlifat Ismail has been unable to renew her passport as a result of her being placed on an ECL. Both, Muhammad and Uzlifat Ismail, suffer from serious medical conditions including hypertension, diabetes and kidney issues.

The actions of the Pakistani authorities in its targeting of the family are an attempt to silence Gulalai Ismail and punish her for advocating on human rights in Pakistan. Front Line Defenders, CIVICUS, FIDH, the World Organisation Against Torture(OMCT) and the International Service for Human Rights urge the authorities in Pakistan to immediately drop all charges against Muhammad Ismail and Uzlifat Ismail, as we believe that the human rights defenders are being targeted solely as a result of their legitimate and peaceful work in the defence of human rights. We urge the authorities to remove all restrictions on the free movement of Muhammad Ismail and Uzlifat Ismail, and cease all further forms of harassment against the defenders, as it is believed that these measures constitute a direct violation of their rights.

OMCT

Shaheena Shaheen Baloch, a Baloch woman journalist, was shot and killed in Kech, Balochistan on Saturday. Shaheen was a morning host at at PTV and was the Editor of Balochi magazine Dazgohar.

She had been getting death threats and warnings by the Baloch militants to leave her job. However, she did not submit to the threats.

The police has started an investigation in the matter. Turbat police has now claimed that Shaheen was killed by her own husband in what appears to be a case of ‘honor killing’. The suspect has not been arrested yet. A case has been registered and the area has been sealed for further investogations.

As per the local reports, the incident took place at a housing quarter in Turbat and unidentified men left her body at a private hospital. However, these reports have not been confirmed by the local police yet.

The body was dropped off to a a government hospital for medical formalities by an unknown person.

A supporter of gender equality, Shaheen was known to campaign for women’s empowerment in Balochistan.

Before Shaheen, another Pakistan's journalist Sajid Gondal, too, went missing from Islamabad who was being questioned on social media for his rumoured ties with Ahmed Noorani.

WION News

Marvi Sirmed, Pakistani journalist and the human right defender has once again got into controversy for making sarcastic comments about the state’s practice of enforced disappearance in Balochistan.

She referred the Balochis with Hazrat Isa (A.S) that people have started to take her comment in blasphemy context.

Netizens started a trend on Twitter asking the government to arrest Sirmed for violating Section 295-C of the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC).

Section 295-C applicable use of derogatory remarks in respect of the Holy Prophet (PBUH) and other prophets. It is a crime to violate section 295-C and the only punishment is “death”.

After netizens started a trend on Twitter of #ArrestMarviSirmed_295C for making fun of prophet Hazrat Isa (A.S).

After the trend sparked on social media, Marvi Sirmed tried to clarify her statement and asked people how her tweet is referred to as blasphemy?

“The tweet which is generating a lot of abuse, blasphemy allegations, and threats. For those who don’t read Urdu: Mullah told Jesus Christ didn’t die, he was picked up by God. A simpleton asked: Was Jesus a Baloch? For Pete’s sake, how it is blasphemous? How????”

BOL News

A social media activist in Barkhan district of restless Balochistan province was shot and dead on 23 July 2020 (Thursday evening) and a provincial government minister and his bodyguards were booked in the citizen journalist�s murder case.

�We are shocked at this brutal murder of citizen journalist Anwar Kethran,� Islamabad-based media watchdog organization Freedom Network said in a statement on 27 July 2020.

�The provincial government in Quetta must condemn this murder and make sure the accused minister and his bodyguards did not influence their positions to deny the bereaved family justice in the court of law,� the statement urged Balochistan Chief Minister Jam Kamal.

Anwar Jan Kethran, who highlighted social injustices and challenged powerful landlords on his Facebook and Twitter handles, was on his way home on his motorcycle when unidentified gunmen opened fire at him, his family confirmed to Freedom Network, Islamabad-based media watchdog.

Akbar Khan, late Kethran�s brother, accused Balochistan government�s minister for food and population Abdur Rehman Kethran and his bodyguards were nominated in the police�s First Information Report (FIR).

The minister denies the allegation and says the late Kethran was �using social media platform to blackmail� him.

In his 12 July 2020 tweet (see screenshot below), late Kethran accused Abdur Rehman of �ruining� all government departments in his Barkhan district.

It is the first such murder of citizen journalist in Balochistan where citizens are taking to social media platforms as mainstream media of the country is not reporting Balochistan because of �self-censorship.�

�Both the accused in the FIR are bodyguards of the provincial minister, Abdur Rehman,� said the late Kethran�s brother. �The minister is also among the accused.�

The brother said: �The cause of my brother�s murder is journalism. The minister warned my brother to stay away from journalism.�

Late Kethran was a social media activist, younger brother Ghulam Sarwar told online news portal Urdu News. �He (Kethran) was working with Daily �Naveed-e-Pakistan� newspaper in Punjab province. He was very active on social media highlighting social issues and challenged strong feudals openly through his writings, the younger brother was quoted as saying.

Akbar said: �I am sure Kethran was killed at the minister�s instigation. My brother received threats over telephone for writing on social media platforms.� He said his family was told to �stay quiet� otherwise would face �consequences.�

FNPK

Dozens of protesters have staged a demonstration in Pakistan's northwestern city of Peshawar to condemn an assassination attempt on Fazal Khan, an ethnic Pashtun rights activist.

Khan has been a vocal critic of both the Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP) militant group and Pakistani authorities, which he accuses of turning a blind eye to militants.

Khan, a lawyer, told police that he was on his way home from the Peshawar High Court on July 21 when two motorcyclists opened fire on him. Khan said he got away unharmed.

Protesters on July 22 urged the government to protect citizens from militant groups.

Khan lost his son in a Peshawar school massacre carried out by TTP militants in 2014 and has campaigned for justice for the nearly 150 students and teachers who were killed.

Khan is a member of the Pashtun Tahafuz Movement (PTM), which defends the rights of Pashtuns, Pakistan�s largest ethnic minority.

The PTM has campaigned for civil rights for ethnic Pashtuns since 2018.

The group has attracted tens of thousands of people to public rallies to denounce the powerful Pakistani Army's heavy-handed operations in tribal regions impacted by militant operations and the military's alleged connection with Islamist militants.

International rights groups say authorities have banned peaceful rallies organized by the PTM and some of its leading members have been arbitrarily detained and prevented from traveling within the country. Some members have also faced charges for alleged sedition and cybercrimes.

RFERL

A prominent Pakistani journalist known for his harsh criticism of the military and the ruling party was seized from the heart of the capital, Islamabad, and held for 12 hours Tuesday, according to his family.

A brother of the journalist, Matiullah Jan, confirmed to VOA shortly after midnight that Jan had been released. Details of his detention were not immediately available.

CCTV footage shows a group of men, some in plain clothes, others in black uniforms used by elite counter terrorism units of the police, forcing Matiullah Jan into a car as he resisted. During the scuffle, Jan, who was parked outside a school where his wife taught, threw his mobile phone inside the compound. One of the men in uniform walked over to the closed gate and asked people standing inside to hand the phone back. �The teacher standing with me handed the mobile to him. We thought a thief was running with the phone and the police were following him, so he threw the phone inside. We heard loud noises, but our gate was high and we couldn�t see anything,� said Kaniz Sughra, Jan�s wife, who happened to be standing in the building�s garage at the very moment that her husband was being forcibly picked up from the other side of the gate.

The men left in several vehicles, including at least one double cabin white truck with police lights on its roof. An ambulance followed the convoy.

Jan has been attacked twice before. In one incident, he was driving with his son when someone hurled a brick at the windscreen of his car.

�We reported that to the police. It was investigated. In the end police said they knew who was behind it, but they could not tell us,� Sughra said.

She said her husband had received threats recently but told her not to worry about them.

Jan�s brother, Shahid Akbar Abbasi, also received a call from someone claiming to be a fan of his brother and asking for his phone number.

�My hunch is that they confirmed that I was not with my brother and that the number I gave them was still being used by my brother,� Abbasi said.

The reaction to Jan�s alleged abduction was swift. Pakistan�s opposition parties walked out of a session of parliament in protest, as did the journalists covering the proceedings.

The leader of the opposition in parliament, Shehbaz Sharif, condemned Jan�s disappearance on Twitter, adding: �The government's campaign to muzzle the media & critical voices is simply shameful. If something happens to Matiullah, PM will be held responsible.�

Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, son of slain Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto and leader of one of the main opposition parties, Pakistan People�s Party, tweeted: �Extremely concerned at news that @Matiullahjan919 has been abducted from Islamabad. The selected government must immediately insure his safe return. This is not only an attack on media freedoms & democracy but on all of us. Today it is Matiuallah, tomorrow it could be you or I.�

Within hours of the news breaking, #BringBackMatiullah racked up more than 100,000 tweets and started trending on Twitter in Pakistan.

Journalists and human rights bodies issued statements condemning the alleged abduction.

The Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists issued a statement threatening countrywide protests if Jan was not �released� within 24 hours.

�This has become a norm in the country to suppress voices of dissent for controlling media, imposing censorship and denying freedom of speech and expression in the country,� the statement said.

The press association representing journalists covering the nation�s Supreme Court urged the chief justice to take note of the incident.

The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, an independent body, also demanded Jan�s �release.�

�We are deeply concerned at increasing attempts to control the media, suppress independent voices, and curb political dissent, thereby creating an environment of constant fear,� the HRCP statement read.

Amnesty International for South Asia tweeted: �We are extremely concerned for the fate and wellbeing of @matiullahjan919. He has been the subject of physical attacks and harassment for his journalism. The authorities must establish his whereabouts immediately. #ReleaseMatiullah�

Pakistan�s information minister, Shibli Faraz, said the government had taken note of the abduction and was investigating.

�Unacceptable abduction of @Matiullahjan919 from Islamabad today, have spoken with IG @ICT_Police and instructed for immediate action for retrieval and registration of FIR,� tweeted Shahzad Akbar, a special assistant to the prime minister, Imran Khan.

Cases of enforced disappearance are widely documented in Pakistan. Journalists and human rights bodies have repeatedly investigated such incidents and often found the country�s intelligence agencies involved, especially when it comes to critics of the military or members of nationalist groups.

�The scourge of enforced disappearances continued unchecked across the country in 2018. Political activists, students, human rights defenders, lawyers, journalists, members of religious groups, and various ethnic minorities have all fallen victim in recent years,� HRCP wrote in its latest annual State of Human Rights report.

The human rights committee of the country�s Senate took up the issue several years ago and issued seven recommendations that were endorsed unanimously by the entire chamber in 2016. None of those recommendations was ever implemented.

Farhatullah Babar, who was part of the Senate committee, said they had no doubt institutions of the state were involved in these disappearances.

Babar also said that regardless of which party was in power, political governments were �totally helpless in this issue. They cannot do anything,� he added.

The country�s official Commission of Inquiry on Enforced Disappearances claims to have recovered thousands of victims but has so far not filed cases against any responsible party.

In 2018, the chairman of the commission, Justice Javed Iqbal, told the Senate human rights committee that they have identified more than 150 security officials involved in the forced disappearance of people. No action, however, was ever reported against any individual or institution.

�The abductors know they�re so powerful and have impunity that they did not even care for the abduction to be in view of a CCTV camera,� tweeted activist Usama Khilji.

VoA

Media rights groups are calling for accountability after two Pakistani journalists accused paramilitary forces of torturing them for their reporting on poor conditions at a coronavirus quarantine center on the Afghan border.

Saeed Ali Achakzai, a reporter for the Urdu-language Samaa News TV, and Abdul Mateen Achakzai, a reporter for the Pashtun-language Khyber News TV, said they were beaten while under detention for three days in Pakistan's Balochistan province.

Photos released on June 23 by the men, who are not related, show red marks on their backs.

Saeed Ali told RFE/RL�s Radio Mashaal that the two were reporting on the lack of food, water, and other basic facilities at a coronavirus quarantine center near the border city of Chaman.

They were then allegedly called to the paramilitary Frontier Corps command center on June 20 and handed over to an anti-terrorism force that took them to a jail and beat them.

Bashir Barechi, deputy commissioner of Qala-e-Abdullah district in Chaman, accused the journalists of spreading fake news and insulting him on social media. He said the journalists were detained for disrupting public order.

The Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists called on the Balochistan government to conduct a judicial inquiry into the incident and demanded the arrest of any government official involved.

In a statement, press freedom group Reporters Without Borders (RSF) said: �It is absolutely unacceptable that representatives of the security forces should commit acts of torture simply because they didn�t like what these two journalists reported.�

RSF says that journalists working in the Chaman area are constantly harassed for their work covering corruption and �every kind of trafficking� between Pakistan and Afghanistan.

RSF ranks Pakistan 145th out of 180 countries in its 2020 World Press Freedom Index.

RFERL

The Observatory has been informed by reliable sources about the smear campaign against Dr. Arfana Mallah, a professor of chemistry at the University of Sindh Jamshoro, a prominent women�s rights activist, and a member of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP), based in Hyderabad, Sindh Province.

According to the information received, on June 10, 2020, Dr. Arfana Mallah expressed her dismay on Twitter when a colleague at Shah Abdul Latif University in Khairpur, Sindh Province, was arrested on charges of blasphemy and sedition. Within hours, Dr. Mallah was subjected to a vicious campaign led by clerics with the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam party and, subsequently, the Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan, who sought to have Dr. Mallah charged with blasphemy.

A hashtag #ArrestArfanaMallah, which trended for over a week, from June 11 to 19, appeared in some particularly disturbing tweets, including one that compared her to �the female version of Sulman Taseer� referring to the former governor of Punjab Province, who was assassinated by his own bodyguard in 2011 for having spoken up in defence of a Christian woman charged with blasphemy.

Under pressure from radical religious groups and the police, Dr Mallah subsequently issued a written apology, explaining that her social media posts meant no disrespect to Islam or the Prophet. Meanwhile, radical religious groups have further insisted she video-record her apology.

The Observatory firmly condemns the smear campaign against Dr. Arfana Mallah and considers the attacks against her amount to incitement to violence and pose a serious risk to her safety. The Observatory calls on Sindh and Pakistani authorities to provide Dr. Mallah with immediate protection and to guarantee, in all circumstances, her physical integrity and psychological well-being.

FIDH

Arif Wazir, a leader of the Pashtun Tahaffuz Movement (PTM), died in Islamabad on Saturday after being attacked a day ago by unidentified assailants outside his home in Wana, South Waziristan.

Wana Station House Officer Usman Khan confirmed Wazir had passed away after being shifted to Islamabad for treatment.

The police official said a first-information report (FIR) of the incident had been lodged at the Wana police station.

According to another official, on Friday Arif Wazir was strolling outside his residence in Ghwa Khwa, near Wana, when armed persons opened fire from a moving vehicle. The official had told Dawn that Arif Wazir received life-threatening injuries.

He was initially admitted to the District Headquarters Hospital, Wana, but later shifted to an Islamabad hospital.

Arif Wazir is the first cousin of MNA Ali Wazir. Seven members of Arif Wazir�s family were killed in a clash with militants near Wana in 2007. His father, Saadullah Jan, and uncle, Mirza Alam, were among the dead.

Arif Wazir was released from jail on bail about one month ago.

Rights group Amnesty International in a statement on Saturday said authorities must carry out an independent and effective investigation into the attack on Arif Wazir, and that the suspected perpetrators must be held accountable. PTM movement

PTM is a rights-based alliance that, besides calling for the de-mining of the former tribal areas and greater freedom of movement in the latter, has insisted on an end to the practices of extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances and unlawful detentions, and for their practitioners to be held to account within a truth and reconciliation framework.

The party has been critical of the state's policies in the country's tribal belt, where a massive operation against terrorists was conducted in recent times leading to large-scale displacement and enforced disappearances.

PTM's leaders, in particular its elected members to the National Assembly, have come under fire for pursuing the release of individuals detained by authorities without due process. The army has alleged the party of running an anti-national agenda and for playing into the hands of the state's enemies.

The party while rejecting these allegations, has insisted that theirs is a peaceful struggle for the rights of people from the country's tribal belt.

Last year, MNAs Mohsin Dawar and Ali Wazir were arrested by police after a protest gathering in Kharqamar for allegedly using violence and clashing with army personnel.

This year in January, PTM chief Manzoor Pashteen was arrested from Peshawar's Shaheen Town for making a speech in Dera Ismail Khan during which he allegedly said that the 1973 Constitution violated basic human rights. The FIR said Pashteen also made derogatory remarks about the state.

A day later, Dawar was arrested briefly from outside the Islamabad press club alongside several other individuals while protesting Pashteen's detention.

Pashteen was later released on bail on January 25.

Dawn

Mohammed Ismail, a professor of Urdu literature, well-known activist and vocal critic of human rights abuses in Pakistan, is being threatened with prolonged arbitrary detention.

Professor Ismail is the 65-year old father of Gulalai Ismail, a board member of Humanists International and herself a prominent activist. At 16 years old, Gulalai founded the charity Aware Girls, which works to eliminate violence and discrimination against young girls in Pakistan. Gulalai was forced to flee her home country in 2019 after being persecuted for speaking out against sexual assaults and disappearances carried out by the Pakistani military.

Ever since Gulalai successfully relocated to the United States, her family in Pakistan have been punished by association. The family have been subjected to increasing threats, harassment and intimidation from local security forces, including multiple raids on their home by armed men and constant military surveillance of their phones and private messages. Even the family driver has been brutally tortured and interrogated by officials seeking information on Gulalai.

Efforts to silence and punish Professor Ismail began in July 2019, when he was falsely accused of �funding terrorism�. On 24 October 2019, while attending court to defend himself against these charges, Professor Ismail was abducted and forced into a vehicle by the Cyber Crime Wing of Pakistan�s Federal Investigation Agency. He was then charged with new accusations of �hate speech� and �spreading false information against Government institutions� under Section 10 and 11 of the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act 2016, on the basis of his social media posts. If found guilty, he could face up to 7 years imprisonment. After a summary hearing on 25 October, he was taken into pre-trial detention for over a month. A small relief came when he was granted bail at the end of November 2019.

Amidst the confusion caused by the Covid-19 crisis, Pakistani authorities are now redoubling their efforts to imprison Professor Ismail by seeking to revoke his bail. On 20 April, he was summoned without warning to attend court for a hearing to revoke his bail. Only after attending court was he told the hearing was to be postponed to an unknown date in the future.

Forcing Professor Ismail to attend court and potentially detain him in one of Pakistan�s notoriously overcrowded prisons during this time poses an extreme and unnecessary risk to his health, and arguably violates his right to life. At 65 years of age and with multiple pre-existing health conditions, including hypertension, heart and kidney problems, he clearly falls within the category of people who are extremely vulnerable to Covid-19. Even the Supreme Court of Pakistan has recognised as much by approving an order allowing concessions to be granted to prisoners in vulnerable groups including those �who are 55 years and older�.

Humanists International

Pakistani police have arrested an ethnic Pashtun rights activist and charged him with hate speech after he spoke during a visit to neighboring Afghanistan.

Police official Usman Wazir said Sardar Arif Wazir, a member of the Pashtun Tahafuz Movement (PTM), was arrested on April 17 in South Waziristan, a tribal region located along the border with Afghanistan.

The police official said Wazir was accused of delivering an "anti-Pakistan" speech during his visit to Afghanistan. He did not provide any further details.

Jamal Malyar, a local leader of the PTM, said the charge against Wazir was "baseless."

The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) has said the authorities have made allegations of anti-state activities "an expedient label for human rights defenders, particularly those associated with the PTM."

The PTM has campaigned for civil rights for Pashtuns, the country's largest ethnic minority, since 2018.

The group has attracted tens of thousands of people to public rallies to denounce the powerful Pakistani Army's heavy-handed operations in the militancy-hit tribal regions and the military's alleged connection with Islamist militants.

The PTM has been calling for the removal of military checkpoints in tribal areas and an end to "enforced disappearances," in which suspects are detained by security forces without due process.

Pakistan's government rejects allegations that its security forces and intelligence agents are responsible for forced disappearances.

Since the movement was formed in January 2018, international rights groups say authorities have banned peaceful rallies organized by the PTM and some of its leading members have been arbitrarily detained and prevented from traveling within the country. Some members have also faced charges of sedition and cybercrimes.

Authorities in January arrested PTM leader Manzoor Pashteen on charges including sedition, hate speech, incitement against the state, and criminal conspiracy.

Pashteen was later released on bail.

RFERL

Pakistan authorities should take swift action to launch a thorough and credible investigation into the murder of journalist Aziz Memon, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. Memon, who worked for the privately-owned Sindhi TV channel KTN News and the Sindhi-language Daily Kawish newspaper, was found strangled to death in an irrigation ditch yesterday near the town of Mehrabpur in the Naushahro Feroze District of Sindh province, according to news reports.

“The tragic murder of Aziz Memon deserves swift justice, which is something Pakistani authorities have repeatedly failed to deliver for journalists,” said CPJ Asia Program Coordinator Steven Butler. “Given the victim’s previous allegations of threats from local officials, it is essential that the investigation be free from political meddling.”

Months earlier, Memon released a video, now circulating on Twitter, in which he said officials of the opposition Pakistan People’s Party and local police had threatened him over his reporting. His reporting included allegations that individuals were paid to attend a widely publicized 2019 “train march,” in which PPP Chair Bilawal Bhutto Zardari stopped at train stations to give speeches. The PPP is the dominant political party of Sindh province.

Fawad Chaudhry, Pakistan’s federal minister for science and technology and the former information minister, called in a Twitter post for the Chief Justice of Pakistan to take notice of the case, and for the Federal Investigation Agency to investigate the murder.

PPP Chair Bhutto Zardari issued a statement condemning the murder and called for a swift and impartial investigation. An email sent to the PPP asking for comment about the allegations against the party was not immediately answered.

Naushahro Feroze Senior Superintendent of Police Mohammad Farooq told CPJ that police were interrogating three individuals in connection with the murder. He added that while Memon had complained about police threats a year ago, Memon did not report any threat to police in the last six months.

Journalists in Sindh have been protesting for months against what they have called abuse by police, as CPJ reported in December. Pakistan ranked 8th on CPJ’s 2019 Global Impunity Index, with 16 unsolved killings of journalists in the past 10 years. Of the 34 journalists who were murdered for their work since 1992, when CPJ began keeping detailed records, partial justice has been achieved in only three cases, according to CPJ research.

CPJ

Javedullah Khan, the bureau chief for Urdu language newspaper Ausaf, was gunned down on February 25 in Matta, 40-kilometres northwest of Pakistan's Swat Valley. The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) and its affiliate the Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists (PFUJ) condemn the brutal killing.

According to senior police official Muhammad Ijaz Khan, the 36-year-old journalist was killed when two gunmen opened fire on his vehicle. He died at the scene. A police guard accompanying him was unhurt in the attack. No group has yet claimed responsibility for the attack. A local peace committee member Fatehullah Khan called this a "targeted attack."

PFUJ said the remote Swat Valley made efforts to gather information challenging, but investigations revealed Khan was also a member of the local peace committee and had received threats from terrorists prior to his death.

Khan was a former correspondent for Dawn in Mingora, also in Swat Valley and the younger brother of prominent Al-Jazeera journalist Hameedullah Khan. PFUJ said as many as 14 members of Khan’s family have been killed since 2008. According to reports, Khan's relatives were targeted for their involvement in anti-Taliban peace committees formed to help defend villages from militant atrocities. Nobel laureate, Malala Yousafzai was shot as a teenager by a Taliban gunman in the area in 2012.

Khan was laid to rest at an ancestral graveyard in Shakardarrah village on February 26. Large crowds gathered to attend the funeral, including many journalists.PFUJ president GM Jamali and secretary general, Rana Muhammad Azeem, consoled Khan’s family and demanded the Pakistan government provide justice.

PFUJ said: "The journalists working in far flung areas are facing problems to perform their duties in a dangerous atmosphere and they have to sacrifice their lives in the line of duty. The Government should pay compensation to the family of Javid Khan.”

Khan is the second journalist to be murdered in Pakistan this year, following the recent murder of Aziz Memon ten days ago. Memon was found dead in an irrigation channel in Southern Sindh with a wire wrapped around his neck.

IFJ General Secretary, Anthony Bellanger, said:“The IFJ mourns the tragic death of Javedullah Khan. The dangers of reporting in remote and complex regions such as the Swat Valley jeopardises the free flow of information when journalists are forced to live in fear. The IFJ condemns the brutal murder and urges authorities to conduct a review and reform the mechanisms in place to protect journalists.”

IFJ

Lawyer and human rights activist Jalila Haider was released on Monday after being detained by the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) for seven hours at the Lahore airport.

Haider, while talking to Dawn, said she was stopped by airport authorities when she was boarding a flight to the United Kingdom, where she had to attend a conference on feminism arranged by the University of Sussex. When she asked why she was being stopped from boarding the flight, she was told that her name was on the no-fly list because of her "anti-state activities".

Haider said she was made to wait for seven hours but no one came to see her, after which authorities returned her passport and told her that she can book another flight to the UK.

The activist said she will not leave until she meets her mother, who was worried since news of her detention spread on social media. She added that she had not been involved in any "anti-state activity".

Haider hails from Balochistan and belongs to the minority Hazara community. She is an advocate and the founder of We The Humans — a non-profit organisation which works to lift local communities by strengthening opportunities for vulnerable women and children.

She is also vocal about the persecution of the Hazaras in the country. In 2018, she went on a hunger strike, demanding the state to address the violence against the people of the Hazara community, who she said faced persecution due to ethnicity and sectarianism. Haider had demanded Army Chief Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa to visit Balochistan and console the thousands of widows and orphaned children left by the killing of Hazaras in Pakistan over the past two decades.

Last year, she was listed as one of the 100 most inspiring and influential women across the world by the BBC.

News of her detention spread on social media after the activist posted on her Facebook page that she had been stopped at the Lahore airport. Her sister — who had come to see her off — and social media activists gathered at the airport, demanding Haider's release and holding placards.

"[I was] not told the reasons behind it (placement of her name on the no-fly list), but they said that it was because of my anti-state activities. I said 'I haven't been involved in any anti-state activity'," Haider told BBC Urdu. "Anyway, they [...] impounded my passport and CNIC and told me to sit down and that they'll hold further investigation and try to find out who placed my name on the list and why."

The activist said that only names of people who are suspected in a case and are named in a first information report can be placed on the Exit Control List (ECL). She further said that people whose names are placed on the ECL should be served with a show-cause notice, adding that she was not issued one.

Haider's lawyer Asad Jamal, who said he was not allowed to meet her while she was being detained, called it "an act of harassment", AFP reported.

Pakistan's interior ministry did not immediately respond to requests for comment by AFP.

Dawn

The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) strongly condemns the arrest of at least 23 civil society activists and political workers in Islamabad, during a peaceful protest held yesterday to demand the release of civil rights activist Manzoor Pashteen. There is no indication that the protestors resorted to violence at any point, although video footage shows several of them being manhandled by the police.

HRCP believes that these actions were unconstitutional and have violated citizens’ right to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly. The arbitrary use of the charge of sedition under an archaic law to curb political dissent – that has in no way incited hatred or violence – indicates how little regard the state has for its citizens’ civil and political liberties. This is cause for concern: the measure of a state is the treatment it metes out to citizens who choose to disagree peacefully with its actions.

HRCP demands the immediate and unconditional release of all those still detained, including Ammar Rashid, Nawfil Saleemi and Saifullah Nasar, among others. We also urge the authorities to refrain from such high-handedness when dealing with peaceful protests.

HRCP

Pashtun Tahaffuz Movement (PTM) chief Manzoor Pashteen was sent to Peshawar's Central Jail on a 14-day judicial remand by a magistrate hours after he was arrested from the city's Shaheen Town on Monday.

The PTM leader was produced before a magistrate in Judicial Complex, Peshawar, where strict security arrangements were made prior to his arrival.

The court will hold a hearing tomorrow to decide whether a transitory remand can be granted in order to move Pashteen to Dera Ismail Khan, where a first information report (FIR) has been registered against him.

According to police, a case was registered against the PTM chief at the City Police Station in DI Khan on Jan 18 under sections 506 (punishment for criminal intimidation), 153-A (promoting enmity between different groups), 120-B (punishment of criminal conspiracy), 124 (sedition), and 123-A (condemning the creation of the country and advocating the abolishment of its sovereignty) of the Pakistan Penal Code.

According to the FIR, a copy of which is available with Dawn.com, Pashteen and other PTM leaders had attended a gathering on Jan 18 in DI Khan where the PTM chief had allegedly said that the 1973 Constitution violated basic human rights.

The FIR added that Pashteen also made derogatory remarks about the state.

Police had also arrested nine other PTM workers who were identified as Muhammad Salam, Abdul Hameed, Idrees, Bilal, Mohib, Sajjadul Hassan, Aimal, Farooq and Muhammad Salman.

Tahkal police station official Shiraz Khan had confirmed the arrests.

Taking to Twitter, senior PTM leader and MNA Mohsin Dawar said: "This is our punishment for demanding our rights in a peaceful and democratic manner. Manzoor's arrest will only strengthen our resolve. We demand the immediate release of Manzoor Pashteen."

He urged PTM workers and supporters to remain calm in the wake of the arrest. "We will devise a strategy after consultations. We are up against those who are most troubled by demands for constitutional rights, and we will continue doing that."

He announced that PTM will hold an emergency press conference at the Islamabad Press Club at 3pm and urged party workers to show their support. PPP, senators call for immediate release

The PPP, in a statement today, demanded that Pashteen be released immediately and that a dialogue be initiated between the government and the youth of tribal areas. The statement said that PTM's demands were "legitimate" and "will not be swept aside by arresting Manzoor Pashteen".

The statement, issued by General Secretary of PPP's Khyber Pakhtunkhwa chapter Faisal Kundi, said that "political arrests only aggravate the situation and [do] not help resolve political issues"

"It is most foolish and highly condemnable that the voice of tribal youth is being silenced through brute state force at a time when there is urgent need for a dialogue," the statement read. Kundi further said that Pashteen was arrested just days after Defence Minister Pervez Khattak offered to hold dialogue with the activists.

Senators Usman Kakar and Hasil Bizenjo, during the Senate session today, demanded the release of Pashteen.

"Manzoor Pashteen is an internationally popular leader," Pakhtunkhwa Milli Awami Party's Kakar said. "His arrest will garner a major reaction."

Kakar said that for the past two years, Pashteen had carried out a "democratic struggle" for "democratic demands".

Following Pashteen's arrest, #ReleaseManzoorPashteen started trending on Twitter with various politicians and human rights activists calling for his release.

Human rights group Amnesty International also called for Pashteen's "immediate and unconditional" release.

Taking to Twitter, the group said: "Manzoor Pashteen has been arbitrarily detained for exercising his human rights to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly. He must be released immediately and unconditionally." PTM movement

PTM is a rights-based alliance that, besides calling for the de-mining of the former tribal areas and greater freedom of movement in the latter, has insisted on an end to the practices of extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances and unlawful detentions, and for their practitioners to be held to account within a truth and reconciliation framework.

The party has been critical of the state's policies in the country's tribal belt, where a massive operation against terrorists was conducted in recent times leading to large-scale displacement and enforced disappearances.

PTM's leaders, in particular its elected members to the National Assembly, have come under fire for pursuing the release of individuals detained by authorities without due process. The army alleges the party of running an anti-national agenda and for playing into the hands of the state's enemies.

Last year, two of PTM's MNAs — Mohsin Dawar and Ali Wazir — were arrested by police after a protest gathering in Kharqamar for allegedly using violence and clashing with army personnel. The party while rejecting these allegations, insisted that theirs is a peaceful struggle for the rights of people from the country's tribal belt.

Dawn

A reporter for the Urdu-language newspaper Nai Baat, Nasrullah Chaudhry received the jail sentence from an anti-terrorism court in the southern city of Karachi on 26 December. He was also fined 15,000 rupees.

After his arrest in the night of 9 and 10 November 2018 in alleged possession of documents “inciting religious hatred and Jihad,” Chaudry was accused of links with the terrorist organization Al Qaeda. He has always denied any connection with terrorist activists or possessing documents inciting hate crimes.

“After an investigation lasting more than a year, the prosecution was unable to produce any evidence of Nasrullah Chaudhry’s guilt,” said Daniel Bastard, the head of RSF’s Asia-Pacific desk.

“We call on Karachi’s courts to quash this grossly unfair conviction and, in the absence of any additional supporting evidence, to dismiss all further proceedings against him. The best way to prevent any acts of terrorism is to allow journalists to do their investigative reporting.”

Ever since his arrest, he has accused the authorities of fabricating the case against him. He has worked as a journalist for 20 years and has the unanimous support of the Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists and the Karachi press club.

Pakistan is ranked 142nd out of 180 countries in RSF’s 2019 World Press Freedom Index.

RSF

Police have registered cases against the organisers and participants of the recently held Student Solidarity March on sedition charges and arrested Alamgir Wazir, one of the participants.

The Civil Lines police on behalf of the state registered a case on sedition charges against the march’s organisers, including Ammar Ali Jan, Farooq Tariq, Iqbal Lala (father of Mashal Khan who was lynched over allegation of blasphemy in Abdul Wali Khan University, Mardan), Alamgir Wazir (nephew of MNA and Pashtun Tahaffuz Movement leader Ali Wazir), Mohammad Shabbir and Kamil Khan, besides 250-300 unidentified participants.

Interestingly, the action flies in the face of the recent statements by several ministers and government representatives who supported the students.

The students took to the streets in 50 cities of the country to voice their demands, including restoration of student unions.

According to the FIR, complainant Sub-Inspector Mohammad Nawaz said he was on patrol when he received information that a rally of 250-300 people led by Ammar Ali Jan, Farooq Tariq, Iqbal Lala, Alamgir Wazir, Mohammad Shabbir and Kamil Khan was being taken out. He said he had reached Faisal Chowk on The Mall where the protesters were forcibly blocking the road to set up a stage to deliver speeches.

“The speakers incited the students against the state and its institutions and speeches and slogans were recorded on mobile phones and can also be checked through PPIC3 cameras,” he claimed.

Capital City Police Officer Zulfiqar Hameed told Dawn that one of the suspects, Alamgir Wazir, was arrested two days ago in the case. He said the case was registered on behalf of the state because the students were delivering provocative speeches and chanting slogans against the state and its institutions. He said police would arrest the other people involved in the case as well.

Alamgir Wazir, a former Punjab Uni­versity student who went on to become chairperson of the Pakhtun Council, had gone missing from the campus two days ago. He had completed his BS Gender Studies from the university last year and was there to get his degree. He was staying at hostel No 19 with his cousin Mohammad Riaz.

The Pukhtun Council students protested against the arrest of Alamgir Wazir outside the Punjab University vice chancellor’s house. The protesters condemned the arrest and demanded his immediate release. Social media is abuzz with the news of his disappearance and demand for his recovery.

This is not the first case registered against students and activists on sedition charges. In February, an FIR was lodged in Multan where police arrested Progressive Youth Alliance activist Rawal Asad and kept him in jail for a month.

Ammar Ali Jan tweeted: “We have been nominated in an FIR. We met Governor who assured us of support. Ministers tweeted in our support. Protesters gathered & dispersed peacefully. Do we even have a govt in our country? Can we trust anybody’s words? We are peaceful citizens & will remain undeterred.”

Talking to Dawn, he said thousands of students were protesting in the country for restoration of student unions and their other rights, but sedition case had been registered against them. The government, he said, was using the colonial-era law to penalise them just as the British would book natives for chanting slogans against their King.

“Are we living in democracy or under any kingship? Its inhuman law in a democracy and it’s a message of the state that they can use draconian laws against its people but can’t give them their rights,” he deplored.

Dawn

Student organisations in Pakistan had organised a countrywide student march on Friday to demand the revocation of a 35-year ban on student unions in colleges and university campuses.A day after the Students Solidarity March in Pakistan on Saturday, student activist Alamgir Wazir from the Punjab University in Punjab Province’s Lahore has gone missing.

A gender studies’ student, Wazir came into the limelight due to his “fierce” speech at the march. A video of his speech has gone viral on social media. He says in the video: “We are asking for education, justice, and roads but they are giving us guns".

​Students from Punjab University have been protesting outside the vice chancellor’s office since Wazir went missing, demanding his release. They are saying he has been arrested for chanting slogans against the authorities.

​Wazir has reportedly been vocal about racial discrimination against Pashtuns.

Netizens are condemning the “abduction” of the student leader for voicing his opinion against the Pakistani government. #ReleaseAlamgirWazir is also trending on Twitter, demanding the student’s release.

"This is extremely condemnable & sharamnak we demand immediate release of Alamgir and the perpetrators must be charged for this unlawful act," tweeted MNA Mohsin Dawar. His fellow colleague from the former federally administered tribal areas, Ali Wazir, is related to Alamgir Wazir. The missing Wazir is the MNA's nephew.

Wazir was last seen outside a hostel on the Punjab University campus, when unidentified men in a vehicle took him away at 5 PM on Saturday.

Nation

Rights activist Idris Khattak was allegedly kidnapped by unidentified men while on his way from Akora Khattak village to Swabi, his driver Shahsawar told police, DawnNewsTV reported on Monday.

In a complaint filed in Anbar police station, Shahsawar said that he was driving Khattak to Swabi when about four unidentified men stopped the activist's car at Swabi Motorway Interchange and kidnapped him. The incident took place on November 13, according to the complaint. Though complaints have been lodged by Khattak's driver and family, police are yet to register a first information report (FIR).

Officials did confirm that Khattak was missing but said an FIR will be lodged after an initial investigation.

Politician Jibran Nasir claimed that the activist was "abducted by intel agencies six days ago on Islamabad Peshawar highway near Swabi Interchange". Nasir said that the driver was abducted along with Khattak but was released after three days. However, the application filed by Shahsawar did not mention any such occurrence.

Meanwhile, the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) demanded Khattak's "immediate recovery", saying that he had "remained associated with progressive politics since his student days".

"HRCP condemns arbitrary detentions and urges the Pakistani state to fulfill its constitutional obligations towards its citizens," the organisation said in a tweet.

Dawn

Rights activist Gulalai Ismail's father, Professor Muhammad Ismail, was sent to jail on 14-day judicial remand on Friday, a day after his daughter alleged that he had been picked up from outside the Peshawar High Court (PHC) by "men wearing Malitia (sic) dress".

Professor Ismail's lawyer, Fazal Khan, told DawnNewsTV that the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) Peshawar had arrested his client after registering a First Information Report (FIR) against him under the Pakistan Electronic Crimes Act (Peca) 2016.

Khan said that his client was produced before judicial magistrate Naveedullah today, where the court rejected FIA's request for physical remand and instead sent him on a 14-day judicial remand. He added that they would soon file a bail application.

The lawyer said that on Thursday his client was at the PHC for another case.

"At around 4:30pm he left the high court building and was picked up by some unknown men and shifted to [an] unknown location," Khan claimed. Case registered

The FIR, a copy of which was seen by Dawn.com, was registered against Professor Ismail under Sections 10 and 11 of Peca 2016 read with Section 109 of the Pakistan Penal Code at FIA Cyber Crime Circle in Peshawar.

The case was registered after a complaint was received against Ismail by persons namely Sajid Iqbal, Ali Ahmad, Riazur Rehman and Walid Mir on October 8.

“The complaint is regarding ... hate speech and fake information against government institutions of Pakistan on Facebook and Twitter,” according to the FIR.

It said the professor's Facebook and Twitter IDs, passwords and a mobile phone were seized by the FIA. US 'concerned'

Earlier on Friday, Gulalai via Twitter said she had received information that her father had been brought to the court premises.

On Friday morning, US Assistant Secretary of State Alice G. Wells, who is also the in-charge of South Asia affairs at the US State Department, had expressed concern over "reports of the continued harassment" of Gulalai's family and her father's detention.

"We encourage Pakistan to uphold citizens’ rights to peaceful assembly, expression, and due process," Wells said in a post shared on Twitter.

In September, the New York Times reported, Gulalai escaped Pakistani authorities the previous month and had reached the United States, where she applied for political asylum.

Read: Activist Gulalai Ismail 'escapes' to New York, applies for political asylum

Gulalai is an international award-winning activist and a prominent member of the Pashtun Tahaffuz Movement (PTM) group who had been campaigning for the rights of women and the ethnic Pashtun minority.

She had not disclosed how she managed to leave the country. All she revealed was: "I didn’t fly out of any airport."

"I can’t tell you any more," NYT quoted her as saying during an interview. "My exit story will put many lives at risk."

According to NYT, no government officials were willing to make a public comment on the matter. Security officials had said that they had suspected Gulalai had left the country.

Dawn

Pakistan’s immigration authorities barred entry of Committee to Protect Journalists' (CPJ) Asia Programme Coordinator Steven Butler, saying that his name had been placed on a 'stop list', a press statement issued by the body said on Thursday.

"Last [Wednesday] night, Pakistani immigration authorities denied entry to CPJ Asia Programme Coordinator Steven Butler, citing a blacklist managed by the Ministry of Interior," the CPJ statement said.

"A border officer at Allama Iqbal International Airport in Lahore told Butler that his journalist visa was valid, but it was voided because his name was 'on a stop list of the Interior Ministry'," it quoted Butler as saying.

According to the statement, Butler's passport was "confiscated" by airport authorities and he was forced to board a flight bound for Doha. When he arrived in Doha, authorities there placed him on a flight to Washington, DC, the statement read further.

While on the flight, Butler told the CPJ that the flight crew had seized his passport and boarding pass and that he was in "a kind of restrictive custody".

"Pakistani authorities’ move to block Steven Butler from entering the country is baffling and is a slap in the face to those concerned about press freedom in the country," the statement quoted CPJ’s executive director Joel Simon as saying.

"Pakistani authorities should give a full explanation of their decision to bar Butler from entering and correct this error. If the government is interested in demonstrating its commitment to a free press, it should conduct a swift and transparent investigation into this case."

Butler had landed in Lahore to participate in the Asma Jahangir Conference — Roadmap for Human Rights in Pakistan, said the statement.

In September, CPJ had expressed concern about a plan to form "media courts" in the country.

Last year, the organisation released a special report after recording testimonies of journalists in various cities of Pakistan. They said that the climate for press freedom in the country had been deteriorating, even as overall violence against and murder of journalists declined.

CPJ said that journalists, including freelancers, had "painted a picture of a media under siege". 'Alarming sign'

Rights organisations Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) and Amnesty International expressed alarm over Butler's deportation and said that the decision should be "reevaluated" and "reversed".

In a tweet, HRCP said that it was "disappointed by the government's decision" to deport Butler, adding that the decision "must be reevaluated".

"On one hand, the government claims to be building a softer image of Pakistan. On the other, it refuses entry to a reputed international journalist with a valid visa," HRCP said in a tweet.

Amnesty International also criticised the move, saying that the deportation of the CPJ official was "an alarming sign that freedom of expression continues to be under attack in Pakistan".

"The decision must be reversed immediately," the rights group demanded in a tweet.

Dawn

Police blocked a march Sunday by thousands of protesters in Pakistani-controlled Kashmir who wanted to move toward the highly militarized Line of Control that divides the territory between Pakistan and India. The marchers are protesting the lockdown in Indian-administered Kashmir.

Police placed shipping containers on the road and deployed a large contingent of officers near Jaskool, 8 kilometers (5 miles) from the frontier to stop the supporters of the Jammu-Kashmir Liberation Front, which announced it intended to cross the frontier to help Kashmiris under Indian oppression.

India imposed a strict curfew on Aug. 5 after stripping Indian-controlled Kashmir of its statehood.

JKLF wants Kashmir to be independent from from both India and Pakistan. The group has a history of attempts to cross the de facto frontier in the last three decades, including once in 1992 that ended in violence.

Abdul Hameed Butt, a leader of the JKLF, said the protesters would stage a sit-in until the blockade was removed.

The JKLF march, termed the "Freedom March" began Friday and reached the blockade after two overnight stops.

Police officer Arshad Naqvi said protesters won't be allowed to continue because of the threat of "unprovoked enemy fire" from the Indian side.

"We want to go and [the Pakistani administration] should let us go to help our people," said Tahir Hussain, a college student.

Also on Sunday, the main religious party, Jamaat-e-Islami, held a protest march in the eastern city of Lahore with thousands protesting against the situation in Indian-controlled Kashmir.

Meanwhile, U.S. Sens. Chris Van Hollen and Maggie Hassan, along with Ambassador Paul Jones, charge d' affairs at the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad, visited Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistan-controlled Kashmir.

A Foreign Ministry statement said the purpose of the visit was to see the ground situation and gauge public sentiment following Aug. 5 ``illegal Indian actions'' in occupied Jammu and Kashmir.

Hollen and Hassan met with President Masood Khan and Prime Minister Farooq Haider of Pakistan-controlled Kashmir, who both urged the senators to play a role in saving the people of Kashmir from India's repressive measures and pressing India to resolve the Kashmir dispute in accordance with U.N. Security Council resolutions.

VOA

A Pakistani lawyer and activist who had complained about receiving death threats after he took on a controversial blasphemy case, has been shot dead by gunmen who stormed into his office. Rashid Rehman was shot and killed by two men who entered his office at 8.30pm on Wednesday in the city of Multan and opened fire. Two others in the office were seriously injured by the gunmen, who then fled. Mr Rehman, a well-known lawyer and a regional coordinator for the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP), said he had been threatened after taking on the case of a university lecturer accused of blasphemy. At the first hearing of the case in March, held inside a prison for security reasons, Mr Rehman was apparently threatened by lawyers representing the complainant. "He was a dedicated activist from the very beginning. All his life he was helping the downtrodden," senior HRCP official Zamal Khan told The Independent. "He was fearless and never gave any time to the threats. He said he would live for the struggle and die for the struggle." Pakistan's blasphemy laws, introduced under British rule and then tightened during the years of military dictator Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq, have become increasingly controversial. Campaigners say that the laws, which carry the death penalty, are routinely used to settle personal scores and grudges that have nothing to do with Islam. While no one has ever been executed for blasphemy, several accused have been attacked and killed and lawyers and judges have been threatened. A recent report by a US government advisory panel said there were 14 people on death row in Pakistan and 19 others serving life sentences for insulting Islam. Among those on death row is a 70-year-old British citizen, Muhammad Asghar, who was sentenced in January after being convicted of claiming he was a prophet. His lawyers and family said he has been suffering from mental health issues for several years. Efforts to reform the laws by Pakistan's previous government were scrapped in the aftermath of the murder in January 2011 of Salmaan Taseer, the governor of Punjab province, where Multan is located, who had spoken about the misuse of the laws and the need to reform them. Mr Rehman, who had a family, took on the case of Junaid Hafeez, a lecturer at Multan's Bahauddin Zakariya University who was accused of defaming the prophet Mohammed on social media last year. Reports said the accusations were levelled by hardline students who pushed for him to be charged. Apparently no one was wiling to take on Mr Hafeez's defence until Mr Rehman stepped forward. After the hearing in March, when he was allegedly threatened, the HRCP issued a statement which said: "During the hearing the lawyers of the complainant told Rehman that he wouldn't be present at the next hearing as he would not be alive." The HRCP said that Mr Rehman was threatened in the presence of the judge but that the court took no action. After the incident, Mr Rehman complained to the District Bar Association. Mr Rehman's colleague, Mr Khan, said the lawyer had also complained to the police but that they had taken no action. "They were totally indifferent." Mr Rehman's funeral service is due to be held in Multan on Thursday afternoon.

The Independent | The News Pakistan

On 13 August 2013, Ghulam Fatima, owner of a small grocery shop in Sahimal, Punjab, was severely beaten and almost killed by a group of men attempting to force her to sell her property. According to the allegations received, Ms. Fatima was previously allegedly threatened and harassed a number of times by this same group of persons. Human rights defenders and journalists, some of whom are members of the Press Club of Kamir - learned that the police refused to file a FIR because they claimed they needed to investigate the incident first. Soon after, what happened to Ms. Fatima was widely reported in the print and electronic media, including live broadcasting in local TV channels. According to reports, on 14 August 2013, journalists and human rights defenders visited the police station to inquire about the status of the FIR. A police officer allegedly threatened them indicating that a "fake encounter" could be conducted against them for interfering in the official work of police. A day later, a case was reportedly filed against persons to interfering with police business, although the identities of these persons are unknown. In this connection, Mr. Barkat Ali Gulzar, President of the Press Club, and Mr. Sabir Shehzad, Director of the International Human Rights Commission were reportedly informed that should they continue reporting the case, they would be "booked in the open FIR". On 4 September 2013, a Joint Urgent Appeal was issued by the Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression; the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders; the Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions; the Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment; and the Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences.

UN OHCHR | UN OHCHR

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - In the latest blasphemy case to highlight growing intolerance in Pakistan, the police in Punjab Province said Tuesday that they had filed blasphemy charges against a group of 68 lawyers at the instigation of a Sunni extremist leader. The mass charging was an unusually wide application of Pakistan's colonial-era blasphemy law, which carries a potential death sentence. But it was consistent with what human rights groups call an increasingly frequent abuse of the law to settle scores, silence opponents or persecute minorities, and comes at a time when freedom of expression in Pakistan is under concerted assault from extremists. "Blasphemy has become a political battle," said I. A. Rehman, a veteran human rights activist. "It's no longer just a criminal or religious problem - it's become a political issue that is used to silence voices and create a climate of fear." Mr. Rehman's family suffered directly from the blasphemy laws last week. His nephew, a prominent defense lawyer and rights activist named Rashid Rehman, was shot dead in the southern city of Multan, weeks after he received death threats for defending a university lecturer accused of blasphemy. The case against the 68 lawyers occurred in Jhang, a district in central Punjab that has a history of sectarian upheaval and is the birthplace of Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan, one of the country's most virulent Sunni extremist groups, which has since been renamed Ahle Sunnat Wal Jamaat and was banned in 2012. On May 7, dozens of lawyers, mostly from the country's Shiite minority, staged a street protest against a senior police official, Umar Daraz, according to the police and lawyers. The lawyers said Mr. Daraz had detained and beaten a lawyer after arguing with him. The police removed Mr. Daraz from his position in response to the complaints. But the lawyers continued their protest for several days, urging the police to arrest Mr. Daraz and several of his subordinates. The lawyers shouted insults at Mr. Daraz, sometimes calling him a dog, a frequent occurrence in Pakistani protests. They also referred to him by his first name - one that is common in Pakistan but is also shared by Umar Farooq, a revered historical figure in Islam who was a companion of the Prophet Muhammad in seventh-century Arabia. The leader of Ahle Sunnat Wal Jamaat, Maulana Muhammad Ahmed Ludhianvi, was at the police station during one of the protests. He claimed the lawyers were shouting and insulting the name of the religious figure, not the police officer, said the town police chief, Zeeshan Asghar, in a phone interview. Mr. Ludhianvi recently entered electoral politics, and though he has said he renounced violence, critics of his group say he has continued to whip up anti-Shiite sentiment. A few days later, one of his associates lodged a formal blasphemy complaint against the 68 lawyers. Eight of the lawyers were named in the police report, but the other 60 were unidentified, a common practice in Pakistan aimed at giving leverage to the complainants. "Call it our bad luck," said Mr. Asghar, referring to the presence of Mr. Ludhianvi during the protest. Muhammad Afzal Sial, president of the local bar association, insisted the lawyers had not intended any offense to Islam. "Our lawyers only named only the police officer, but certain elements tried to exploit the situation," he said in a phone interview. Blasphemy cases have become more frequent in Pakistan, often in absurd circumstances, underscoring how a law intended to protect against religious intolerance has become a tool of bigotry. That also makes it a minefield for judges, journalists, police officers and lawyers, for whom one wrong step can have life-threatening consequences. In 2011, Salmaan Taseer, the governor of Punjab, and Shahbaz Bhatti, the minister for minorities, were shot dead in separate attacks after advocating changes to the law. Such killings have created a tinderbox atmosphere in parts of the country with a history of sectarian problems. The Jhang police chief, Mr. Asghar, said the lawyers' protests had stirred up wider tensions in the community and at one point led to an altercation between Sunni and Shiite lawyers. He had been forced to bring the blasphemy case, he said, to restore public order. "Armed clashes could have erupted in the city otherwise," he said. The police hope to end the standoff by persuading Mr. Ludhianvi to withdraw his complaint. In Multan, police officials reported no progress in the case of Mr. Rehman, who was shot several times by unidentified gunmen who broke into his office on May 7. At the time, Mr. Rehman was the lead defense lawyer in a blasphemy case that others had rejected, fearing for their lives. Weeks before his death, Mr. Rehman publicly complained of receiving a death threat in open court from lawyers for the prosecution, but the police and judiciary did not follow up. "He did not fail anyone, everybody who mattered failed him," his uncle, I. A. Rehman, wrote in the newspaper Dawn. "What matters more now is the sight of a society that seems to have lost all sense of shame or responsibility."

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On 4 June 2013, at approximately 4 p.m., Ms. X was brutally attacked in her own residence in Hyderabad. It is reported that the alleged perpetrators cut off her hands, ears and fingers, gouged both of her eyes and robbed valuable jewelry. She was later found in her apartment by a family member, Mr. Z, who brought her to a civil hospital where she soon died as a result of her injuries. Ms. X was a human rights defender working for women's rights with a local non-governmental organization, named Social Welfare Organization, which provided social services in Tando Jam. It is reported that Ms. X recently conducted activities to raise awareness on the case of the murder of a Hindu man in the Gulashan Hali police station, who allegedly died as a result of severe injuries sustained while he was being tortured by the local police. According to reports, Ms. Y, the younger sister of Ms. X, and a family member, Mr. Z, held a protest in front of the office of the Senior Superintendent of Police of Hyderabad. They allegedly placed the body of Ms. X on the ground and urged authorities to identify and detain those responsible for her killing. It is reported that a Station House Officer threatened them with arrest should they continue with the protest and urged them to remove the body from the road. Ms. Y's intention was for the police to file a First Information Report (FIR). She carried evidence materials, including pictures and video clips that she recorded at the scene of the alleged murder of her sister. On 5 June 2013, it is reported that a police officer received 3,300 Rupees from Ms. Akhter's family to lodge a FIR against two accused men, including a police officer. The FIR, which received a code number 44/2013, was registered under sections 302, 380 and 34 of the Penal Code. It is alleged that an internal inquiry was launched which exonerated the accused based on fabricated grounds, as prosecution witnesses denied the murder. As a result, Hyderabad police refrained from launching an investigation into the killing of Ms. X. According to reports received, both Ms. Y and Mr. Z received death threats for pursuing the case of Ms. X. Mr. Z allegedly challenged the police inquiry denying the murder. His case is currently being considered by a civil judge and judicial Magistrate in Hyderabad (number 8). Moreover, on 29 June 2013, at around 11:30 a.m., Ms.Y was fatally killed by three armed men. She was shot as she and Mr. Z returned from a court hearing for the petition to demand an inquiry into the murder of Ms. X. Allegedly, Ms. Y was dragged out of her rickshaw as they approached the vegetable market at Sabzi Mandi, and was shot at close range. While the assailants left the area, Ms. Y managed to stand up despite her injuries. One of the men, who allegedly had been involved in the murder of her sister,reportedly went back to the scene and shot eight bullets into the body of Ms. Y. Ms. Y died immediately. Mr. Z reportedly managed to survive the attack despite being shot at by the assailants. It is also reported that another family member, Mr. Q, took the body of Ms. Y and placed it in front of the Office of the Senior Superintendent of Police in Hyderabad . He held a protest demanding justice and the arrest of those responsible for the murder of Ms.Y. Mr. R managed to make the police file a FIR and received a permission to carry out anautopsy. It is reported that Mr. R is also receiving death threats for pursuing the case of Ms. Y.

UN OHCHR | UN OHCHR

On 25 February 2013, the Home Secretary of Gilgit-Baltistan, upon reception of a letter from the Home Department of Gilgit-Baltistan, issued an order to deputy commissioners and police officers of various districts to put a halt to all activities of AGHE-Pakistan. In this letter, the Home Department informed that AGHE-Pakistan was no longer a registered NGO, and that a "No Objection Certificate' was required from both the economic division and the Government of Gilgit in order for the NGO to continue its activities. AGHE-Pakistan was reportedly never informed of this decision, which is believed to have been taken due to pressure from religious extremist groups, who previously made threats to members of the NGO to compel them to stop working on women's rights and girls' education. AGHE-Pakistan has reportedly been the target of a defamation campaign by sectarian and fundamentalist groups which publicly labeled the NGO as a foreign organization which "implements the agenda of Western countries". Furthermore, it is reported that a number of governmental agencies exerted pressure on the organization to stop its project called "Citizens' Voice for Effective Legislative Governance", funded by USAID, as well as some other activities partially funded by USAID and the Aurat Foundation's Gender Equity Program.

UN OHCHR | UN OHCHR

Classified documents given to the Post by former intelligence contractor Edward Snowden reveal that "US spy agencies for years reported that senior Pakistani military and intelligence leaders were orchestrating a wave of extrajudicial killings of terrorism suspects and other militants". Other US intelligence documents indicate that Pakistani officials weren't targeting just suspected insurgents, the daily said. "In May 2012, US intelligence agencies discovered evidence of Pakistani officers plotting to 'eliminate' a prominent human rights activist, Asma Jahangir," the Post said citing the summary of a top secret Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA) report. The DIA report did not identify which officers were plotting to kill Jahangir, who had been a leading critic of the ISI for years, the Post said. But it said the plan "included either tasking militants to kill her in India or tasking militants or criminals to kill her in Pakistan". The US agency said it did not know whether the ISI had given approval for the plot to proceed. Although the report speculated that the ISI was motivated to kill Jahangir, "to quiet public criticism of the military", the DIA, according to the Post, noted that such a plot "would result in international and domestic backlash as ISI is already under significant criticism for intimidation and extra-judicial killings". "News of the alleged plot became public a few weeks later when Jahangir gave a round of interviews to journalists, revealing that she had learned that Pakistani intelligence officials had marked her for death. The plot was never carried out," the Post said.

Deccan Herald

The central character who exposed the 2012 Kohistan video scandal, first to the media and then the court, was killed in Abbottabad on Wednesday evening, police said. Afzal Kohistani, was shot dead in the densely populated area of Sarban Chowk at around 8:10pm by unidentified gunmen who managed to flee afterwards. According to witnesses, Afzal was shot multiple times and died on the spot. Three passers-by were also injured and were taken to the Ayub Medical Complex Hospital. They were identified as Kaleemullah, Said Karam, and Sabir. Afzal's body, meanwhile, was taken to DHQ Hospital where an autopsy was conducted. Abbottabad District Police Officer Abbas Majeed Marwat and Superintendent of Police Investigation Aziz Afridi reached the spot with a heavy contingent of police and started an investigation into the killing. According to Station House Officer Ghafoor, of the Cantt police station, Afzal was accompanied by his nephew at the time of the incident. The nephew shot back at the gunmen and remained unhurt. The scandal The Kohistan video scandal made headlines in 2012 when eight boys and girls were killed by members of their tribe after a mobile phone video of them at a wedding in a remote village in Kohistan emerged on social media. The video showed five females singing and clapping along as the male family members danced. The mixed gathering had taken place in a village located in an extremely conservative part of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. In the eyes of the locals, the youngsters had violated tribal norms and brought dishonour upon them. After the video was leaked, a jirga was held by the girls' tribe which decreed the killing of the boys and girls under "riwaj' (a tribal custom). Afzal, the brother of one of the boys in the video, was the one who made the news public, alleging that the girls had been killed on May 30, 2012, on the orders of a cleric who led a 40-50 member tribal jirga. Officials in the area, however, had claimed that the murders did not take place and the girls were alive. Former chief justice Iftikhar Chaudhary had taken a suo motu notice of the case on June 7, 2012, and constituted a fact-finding mission on July 17 the same year to investigate the case. The commission went to Kohistan and investigated the matter, producing a report on July 20, 2017, which stated that the girls were alive. Rights activist Farzana Bari, also part of the commission, had expressed doubts at the time that the girls produced before the commission were not the same and some other burqa-clad and veiled girls were, in fact, presented. Three of Afzal's brothers named Shah Faisal, Sher Wali, and Rafiuddin were also killed inside their home on January 3, 2013, by the girls' tribesmen and a year earlier, a child was also killed due to the burning of Afzal's home. On July 31, 2018, a new case was registered at Palas police station on the Supreme Court's orders. Four suspects namely Umar Khan, Saber, Mohammad Sarfraz and Saeed were arrested. Upon interrogation, the suspects confessed to killing three of the girls - Begum Jan, Sireen Jan and Bazgha - by firing, saying they had disposed of the bodies in Nala Chorh. Afzal had been of the firm view that the suspects were lying. "They killed all five girls by severe torture and are not identifying graves as it will reveal their brutality," he had said at the time. Constant threats Afzal had been receiving constant death threats, prompting the Supreme Court to direct the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government to provide him security, but the orders were reportedly not followed. In January this year, while talking to media representatives in Bisham, Afzal had said that during the last court hearing he was scared as his rivals had informed their group about his arrival at the civil court in Kolai-Palas Kohistan. "After the court convicted the accused for killing the five women seen in the video on the order of a jirga, my life is under threat and I am seeking security," he had said. He had alleged that a jirga held in Palas had planned to kill him wherever he was spotted. "They think that I have defamed the honour of the people of Kohistan, and killing me is their target, but I will continue the fight against the so-called culture in which animals are more valuable than human beings," he had vowed. "I have submitted several applications to the Hazara division's regional police officer for my security, especially when I visit Kohistan and Bisham for court hearings because my family and I are receiving threats by those angered by the court decision." Afzal had warned that if anything were to happen to him, the onus would be on the Hazara police.

HRD Memorial

On March 8, International Women's Day, thousands of women in Pakistan came out and marched to show solidarity with their fellow women to push for accountability and restorative justice against violence, harassment, and injustice. The rally was called Aurat (Women) March. it was open to all and no organization or society tried to own it. The women gathered for the march under the banner of "hum Auratain" (we women), which is not an organization or group but a label which they have given to all women of Pakistan. Aurat March started last year in Karachi and spread to the whole country this year. It has emerged as a new wave of feminism in Pakistan - and with that, the march organizers have been receiving rape and death threats online. Nighat Dad, founder of the Digital Rights Foundation, is one of the organizers in Lahore. She received rape threats on Twitter in reply to one of her posts on the Aurat March. Five other women reached out to her nonprofit organization, which works for digital rights in Pakistan and runs a cyber-harassment helpline, to complain of receiving rape and death threats. Dad took to Twitter on Wednesday to announce that complaints had been filed against dozens of social media accounts that were inciting violence against women marchers and organizers of Aurat March. Complaint has been filed against more than dozens of fb, Twitter and YouTube accounts who incited violence against women marchers and organisers of @AuratMarch. DG FIA has ordered Inquiry immediately. We have already identified few people behind some accounts. U know who you are. - Nighat Dad (@nighatdad) March 18, 2019 A number of established politicians, religious scholars, and actors also attacked the Aurat March, calling it against Pakistani cultural values. Minister of the National Assembly Aamir Liaquat Hussain requested that Prime Minister Imran Khan run an inquiry to discover the actual actors behind the march and their agenda. Sindh Assembly lawmaker Abdul Rashid registered a complaint with the police against the organizers of the Aurat March for promoting vulgarity. He also protested in the assembly against placards displayed at the march, demanding that the provincial government take action. A video of a well-known Islamic cleric is making the rounds on social media, in which he is visibly furious over a placard at the Aurat March. The sign read, "Mera jism meri marzi" (my body, my choice). He threatened women with rape, saying that if they claim to right to their bodies, men can also claim that right to rape women. This video has more than 67,000 views on YouTube. What Is the Aurat March? Last year, more than eight NGOs working for the rights of women in Karachi came together with a plan to organize a march on International Women's Day open to all women and transgender and non-binary people. They decided to keep their role anonymous and to not take over the march's agenda. When contacted, they said simply that the women of Karachi arranged it. This year, similar marches were held in other cities too - mainly Lahore, Islamabad, and Karachi. Thousands of young girls and women came out and marched with many others to smash the patriarchal norms and demand a balanced society for all. Lawyer and women's rights activist Shumaila Hussain Shahani is one of the brains behind the Aurat March. She said that last year, when they opened the call for the march, women who had not been out in politics were very skeptical about the idea. "Many of my friends who hadn't been to a march before were skeptical about the idea of a march. But after its success, we saw excitement and an acceptance towards the women. Many women who otherwise are not seen actively taking part in political activities also joined the march this year," she said. Aurat March released a manifesto a day before Women's Day, in which they demanded economic justice, implementation of labor rights and the Sexual Harassment Against Women in the Workplace Act 2010, recognition of women's unpaid labor, and the provision of maternity leave and daycare centers to ensure women's inclusion in the labor force. The World Economic Forum ranked Pakistan as second worst in its 2018 Global Gender Gap Report, which gauges economic opportunity, education, health, and political empowerment. The manifesto also focused on climate change and how it affects women. Gender rights activists demanded access to clean drinking water and air, protection of animals and wildlife. Other demands covered nearly every aspect of social justice: recognition of women's participation in the production of food and cash crops, access to a fair justice system, equal representation of women with disabilities and transgender people, reproductive justice, access to the public, the rights of religious minorities, promotion of an anti-war agenda, and an end to police brutality and enforced disappearances. The Controversy Though the manifesto addressed very important issues women face in Pakistan, anti-march critics slammed the organizers for not focusing on the "real issues" of women and using their platform to promote nudity, vulgarity, and anti-Islamic norms in the country. The Aurat March had been making more headlines in local media for the backlash and criticism it received than for its actual purpose. Last year, two placards from the Aurat March Karachi chapter particularly attracted the ire of people on the internet. One placard read "khud khana garam kar lo!" (Heat up your own food) and other "Mera Jism, Meri Marzi" (My body, my choice). Both placards were badly criticized on every forum - mainstream media, social media, and religious gatherings. Pictures of both women with their placards were widely shared on the internet. Some social media pages also made memes on them. One of the women contacted DRF after her picture went viral and someone tracked down her identity. She had not told her family that she was going to the march. DRF reached out to Facebook and requested that the social media giant remove some of the most liked pictures on their website. While struggling with the conservative structure of Pakistani society, women seemed more prepared for the Aurat March this year. Most of the criticisms were again leveled at the placards the women brought to the march, which some found provocative. Renowned feminist poetess Kishwar Naheed also criticized some of the slogans used at a Women's Day celebration event. Naheed had written a provocative poem "Hum Gunahgar Aurtein" (We Sinful Women) that earned her fame both as a feminist and poetess. Her comments on the Aurat March left the entire feminist circle in shock. Some doctored images of Aurat March placards also went viral on social media, which the organizers consider an attempt to harass women. Shahani counts the backlash as a dent in the patriarchal structure, indicating that it is resisting. "We have gained support from the ruling party of Sindh. I do not think such petty right-wing tactics will deter the marchers. Marches will continue, our struggle for a gender-just world will continue," she said. Aurat March organizers are asking lawmakers with a pro-women approach to come and support their cause. Chairman the Pakistan People's Party Bilawal Zardari Bhutto has assured his support to them. This March, the female humor depicted through the placards has exposed the fragility of the patriarchy and kicked off a new feminist movement in Pakistan. Farida Shaheed, executive director of the non-profit organization Shirkat Gah - Women's Resource Center, pointed out that the feminist movement had received the same sort of criticism in the past too. Even Begum Ra'ana Liaquat Ali Khan, wife of Pakistan's first Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan, was not spared from a vilification campaign by the bigoted clerics. They called her a prostitute for supporting the women's movement. "It is just the start of a new era. We need to be proactive, not reactive," she said. Tehreem Azeem is a digital media journalist based in Lahore, Pakistan. She reports on women rights, minority issues, blasphemy, and media censorship. She tweets @tehreemazeem

The Diplomat

Jan was protesting against the death of Arman Loni from the Pashtun Tahaffuz Movement (PTM), a social movement for Pashtun human rights based in the Khyber Pakhtunkhawa and Balochistan. An academician in Pakistan was arrested on Saturday after police raided his house for protesting against the death of ethnic Pashtun leader earlier this month, according to a media report. Ammar Ali Jan was arrested from his residence and taken to the Gulberg police station, the Dawn News reported. Mr. Jan was protesting against the death of Arman Loni from the Pashtun Tahaffuz Movement (PTM), a social movement for Pashtun human rights based in the Khyber Pakhtunkhawa and Balochistan. Loni died on February 2 after baton charge by the police to disperse protesters of PTM while holding a peaceful protest against the terrorist attacks on security forces in Loralai in country's Balochistan province. In the FIR, Mr. Jan has been accused of leading a group of 100-150 people which was blocking the roads. "The gathering was blocking roads and Jan along with some others were chanting slogans against state institutions and intelligence agencies," the paper reported, quoting the FIR. Mr. Jan said that his house was raided prior to the arrest. "There is an FIR against me for participating at the protest in Liberty against the killing of Professor Arman Loni. I was taken into custody at 4 am which is when "the police raided my house," he said in a Facebook post. In April 2018, Jan was removed from the visiting faculty post at the Punjab University, for what the administration says, "failing to meet contract requirements", according to the report. It was however alleged that Mr. Jan was sacked over his political views and activism.

The Hindu

Loni died on February 2 after baton charge by the police to disperse protesters of PTM while holding a peaceful protest against the terrorist attacks on security forces in Loralai in country's Balochistan province. Eyewitnesses told RFE/RL that a police officer struck the college teacher on the neck with a gun after stopping him as he returned from a sit-in protest in the Loralai district of Balochistan on February 2. Yet the police claim that a postmortem revealed no signs of injury. Balochistan's interior minister told RFE/RL that an "initial investigation suggests Arman Luni died of a cardiac arrest." Loni was a leader in the Pashtun Protection Movement (PTM), which has been holding rallies across Pakistan since the beginning of 2018 to protest against what it says are human rights abuses and extrajudicial killings by security forces in the tribal regions. Mohsin Dawar, a lawmaker and a PTM founding member, said that the police singled Loni out and deliberately beat him to death because of his "association with PTM." "It was a targeted attack on him by police," he told the Reuters news agency. Context is key. Against a backdrop in which several high-profile extrajudicial killings have cast a sustained spotlight on excessive force by state authorities, the risk of tensions spiralling out of control is high. Monday's strike in several areas across Balochistan - with its widespread support from political parties across ethnic lines and sections of society including traders and lawyers - is indicative of Loni's popular standing in civil society as well as how widespread the public disaffection is. The provincial chief minister took notice of Loni's death the very next day, perhaps in recognition of these delicate sociopolitical implications. Concurrently, in the wake of a brutal attack on the DIG police complex in Loralai last week, vigilance on the part of law enforcement and the provincial government is understandably necessary. However, in question here is not only the issue of whether or not Arman Loni was indeed a victim of police brutality, but the very nature of "vigilance' being distorted by public servants to evade accountability and justify curtailing people's rights. Paranoid, overreaching measures taken in the interest of "maintaining public order' are counterproductive. Thus, statements by the provincial home minister seeking to blame those who contest the official version of events (as it currently stands) while in the same breath promising a fair investigation will hardly serve to dispel such perceptions. Loni's death demands an unbiased and transparent probe. But it also requires that the provincial and federal governments be responsive to the public's mood and work to de-escalate a potentially volatile situation.

DAWN

Rights activist Gulalai Ismail was released by Islamabad police late Wednesday, Islamabad Deputy Commissioner Hamza Shafqaat told DawnNewsTV. However, according to the senior official, 17 of the 25 Pashtun Tahaffuz Movement (PTM) workers arrested a day earlier along with Gulalai for holding a protest demonstration outside the National Press Club were sent to Adiala jail after the completion of a verification process by police. The official said that the workers were sent to jail under Section 3 (1) of the West Pakistan Maintenance of Public Order (MPO) of 1960. Under the order, the 17 will remain jailed for a period of 15 days. Gulalai, meanwhile, was released by Islamabad police, DC Shafqaat confirmed. Earlier in the day, Gulalai's father, Professor Muhammad Ismail, told Dawn.com that his daughter had been arrested on Tuesday. According to Professor Ismail, the activist was picked up from outside the National Press Club in Islamabad while she took part in a protest against the controversial death of PTM leader Arman Loni in Balochistan on Saturday. Police had initially shifted Gulalai to the G9 Women's Police Station, Ismail told Dawn.com. According to Gulalai's father, she was shifted to an unknown location a few hours after the arrest. "We are trying to trace her whereabouts but the police is not ready to share Gulalai's location," he had said, adding that so far no First Information Report (FIR) of the arrest had been registered at the time. In October last year, Gulalai had been detained by airport officials in Islamabad following her return from London. She was later released on bail but her passport was withheld by airport officials. The detention had been in connection with an FIR that Swabi police had registered on Aug 13, 2018 against 19 PTM leaders, including Gulalai, for their involvement in a public gathering in Swabi where PTM's Manzoor Pashteen and Gulalai both addressed the crowd. PTM is a rights-based alliance that, besides calling for the de-mining of the former tribal areas and greater freedom of movement in the latter, has insisted on an end to the practices of extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances and unlawful detentions, and for their practitioners to be held to account within a truth and reconciliation framework. Gulalai, a Pashtun and women's rights activist, was in 2017 awarded the 'Reach all Women in War' Anna Politovskaya Award. She co-founded a non-governmental organisation, Aware Girls, with sister Saba Ismail in 2002. The organisation aims to strengthen the leadership skills of young people, especially women and girls, enabling them to act as agents of change for women empowerment and peace building. 'Immediate and unconditional' release In a statement shared on Twitter, Amnesty International South Asia called on Pakistani authorities to "immediately and unconditionally" release PTM protesters. The rights group called on Pakistani authorities to "disclose the whereabouts" of Ismail who they said, "may have been subjected to an enforced disappearance". They also called on the authorities to investigate the "killing" of Loni.

DAWN

A prominent Pashtun rights activist has been presented in a Pakistani court after being arrested on charges of rioting and inciting hatred at a protest demonstration, rights activists say. Alamzeb Mehsud, 26, was arrested in Karachi, Pakistan's largest city, on Monday evening, video footage taken by activists from the Pashtun Tahaffuz Movement (PTM) showed. Mehsud's vehicle was intercepted by police on a busy thoroughfare, with armed police officers forcing him to disembark and be taken into custody, the footage showed. An unidentified man, wearing plain clothes, was seen waving a pistol at Mehsud in the footage. "He was presented in court today[Tuesday] and the court has ordered he be kept in police custody for four days," said Mohsin Dawar, a PTM leader and member of parliament. Since early 2018, the PTM has organised dozens of mass protests against rights abuses allegedly committed by the Pakistani military in its war against the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan and its allies. READ MORE Pakistan's Pashtuns get rights, will it lead to peace? The country has been battling the Pakistan Taliban, an umbrella organisation of armed groups targeting the state and aiming to enforce a strict interpretation of Islamic law, since 2007. A series of military operations since 2014 has seen the group displaced from its erstwhile headquarters in the country's northwest and pushed into neighbouring Afghanistan. Violence has dropped drastically, although sporadic large casualty attacks targeting civilians and security forces still occur. The PTM and other rights groups allege the military has carried out a campaign of thousands of enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings as part of its war against the TTP. Mehsud, a founding member of the group, has been instrumental in gathering data on missing persons and victims of landmines in the northwest tribal districts, where the military's fight was focussed. On Tuesday, images from his court appearance showed Mehsud in handcuffs, his face hooded. He has been charged under anti-terrorism laws with inciting a riot, defamation and "promoting enmity between different groups", according to the police report filed on his arrest. On the weekend, Mehsud had addressed a PTM-organised rally of hundreds of protesters in Karachi, repeating the group's calls for justice to be done for victims of enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings. The police report named him and 15 others, including Ali Wazir, a PTM leader who is also a member of parliament, in the case. Amnesty International, a UK-based rights organisation, said it was "concerned" after news of the arrest broke. We are concerned about reports of the disappearance of PTM activist Alamzeb Mehsud. His whereabouts must be disclosed immediately. Either produce him in court or release him without delay. - Amnesty International South Asia (@amnestysasia) January 21, 2019 "Freedom of peaceful assembly must be protected. Activists must never be attacked," the group said in a tweet. The PTM has been subject to widespread repression since it launched its movement last year, with leaders regularly named in treason and rioting cases, and coverage of its rallies all but blacked out on local news media. Dawar, the member of parliament, said the group was undeterred by the government's actions against them. "If they think that[police cases] and arrests will stop the PTM, they are mistaken," he told Al Jazeera. "They can put as much pressure as they want, we will stick to our demands."

Al Jazeera

Younis Iqbal is the founder and chairman of Anjuman Muzareen Punjab (AMP), a long-standing movement that seeks to protect the land rights and welfare of landless peasants and small farmers in Pakistan's Punjab province. Such disadvantaged communities have been tilling the land for centuries, but recent decades have seen the land being transferred to the military. AMP, which started out in 2000 by lobbying against unfair sharecropping arrangements, has been engaging with the provincial government over land ownership rights. On 16 April 2018, Pakistani land rights defender Younis Iqbal was officially arrested after being in illegal detention for four days.\tOn 12 April 2018, Younis Iqbal was taken away by six plainclothes policemen as he tried to enter the Anti-Terrorism Court for his trial in the city of Sahiwal in Okara. He had been charged under the Anti-Terrorism Act of 1997 in April 2016 for having protested the illegal detention of farmers in Okara district. The human rights defender was taken to an unknown location where he was kept in illegal detention for four days before officially being arrested on 16 April. On the same day, Younis Iqbal's father was threatened when he went to the police station to inquire about his son's whereabouts. The following day, the family filed a petition in the Sessions Court of Okara district against the short-term enforced disappearance of the human rights defender. On 16 April, Younis Iqbal was officially arrested and has been remanded in custody for fifteen days. He was arrested under multiple sections of Pakistan Penal Code, Maintenance of Public Order Punjab (MPO Act, 1960), and Anti-Terrorism Act 1997, which include the trumped-up charges of "attempted murder, obstructing a public servant in carrying out their duties, rioting while in possession of a deadly weapon".

Front Line Defenders

The raid was carried out by dozens of armed plainclothes police who arrived at this prestigious Pakistani press institution at around 10:30 p.m., stormed inside and proceeded to search all the rooms, including meeting rooms, kitchens and the sports room. According to a Karachi Press Club statement, the police harassed the journalists and club officials who were present, and took photos and shot video footage throughout their search without asking permission. "It is absolutely intolerable that police officers should act in a completely illegal manner like this in order to intimidate journalists," said Daniel Bastard, the head of RSF's Asia-Pacific desk. "We urge the Sindh province authorities to investigate this violation of what is a highly symbolic place for press freedom and to punish those responsible. Respect for the rule of law in Pakistan is at stake." Witnesses said the plainclothes gunmen arrived in at least six double-cabin vehicles, a police truck and other vehicles. When the club's president requested an explanation, an officer claimed not to know that it was the press club and said they had come to arrest individuals who were wanted by the authorities. "The police tried to give the appearance of something simple but the story is much bigger," RSF was told by a senior club member on condition of anonymity. "You can't believe that the police officers who carried out this raid did not know where they were. There was a conspiracy." Karachi's journalists met this afternoon to protest against the raid. Founded in 1958 and with around a thousand members, the Karachi Press Club is a place where journalists meet to defend their profession, condemn press freedom violations and violations of human rights in general, and to stage protests. Pakistan is ranked 139th out of 180 countries in RSF's 2018 World Press Freedom Index.

Reporters Without Borders

A senior journalist was allegedly taken away by law enforcement agencies from his home in Karachi on Saturday, according to media organisations. Nasrullah Khan Chaudhry, a senior journalist associated with Urdu-language daily Nai Baat, was "detained' by security personnel following a raid on his residence on Saturday morning. His whereabouts are not known, said a statement issued by the Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists (PFUJ) and Karachi Union of Journalists (KUJ-Dastoor). An emergency meeting of PFUJ (Dastoor) was held at the Karachi Press Club (KPC) on Saturday under the chairmanship of its secretary general, Sohail Afzal Khan, and was attended by KPC office-bearers and senior journalists. The participants expressed their concern over "illegal detention" of Chaudhry and termed it an attack on media freedoms. The participants were of the view that the detention of the senior journalist was aimed at "sabotaging" the ongoing country-wide protest against the "forcible intrusion and harassment" of journalists by law enforcers at the KPC premises on Thursday night. "High-handed tactics are being used to harass the journalists who were protesting against the intrusion by armed personnel and violation of sanctity of the KPC two days ago," the statement said. The PFUJ has urged the Sindh governor, chief minister, Corps Commander Karachi, director general of Sindh Rangers and the inspector general of Sindh Police to take notice of the harassment of journalists and efforts to undermine freedom of the press. It has also demanded that Chaudhry be released immediately. Journalists bodies have announced a protest against Chaudhry's 'detention' on Sunday outside the KPC.

DAWN

Social network Twitter has warned two Pakistani rights activists against objectionable content, they said on Monday, a move that signals a continuing push by the South Asian nation to rein in free speech online. The warnings come a week after Twitter suspended the account of an ultraright Pakistani cleric who issued threats against the government and judiciary over the acquittal of a Christian woman accused of blasphemy. "Warnings sent out by Twitter are an example of how online spaces are being regulated and are shrinking for internet users voicing their opinions," said Pakistani lawyer and internet activist Nighat Dad. In recent e-mails, Twitter told activist Taha Siddiqui it had received complaints that his account was in "violation of Pakistani law", he said, and it added that further action could be taken, but did not specify what. "Pakistani authorities ... are pressuring Twitter to take "legal' steps against me," said Siddiqui, a correspondent for France 24 television, who fled Pakistan in 2018, told Reuters. "Twitter should stop becoming a facilitator of repressive regimes." Twitter's Asia-Pacific representative had no immediate comment when contacted by Reuters. Pakistan's information minister, Fawwad Chaudhry, said his office was "trying to establish close co-ordination" with Twitter to curb "hate speech and death threats", but did not directly respond to questions on the case of Siddiqui, and another activist who received two warnings, Gul Bukhari. Bukhari, who was briefly abducted in July from a military cantonment in the eastern city of Lahore, said one of her e-mail warnings from Twitter referred to a tweet that criticised the government's lack of action against a prominent cleric. The cleric, Khadim Hussain Rizvi, had his account blocked last week after he threatened the Supreme Court judges who acquitted Asia Bibi and urged their cooks and servants to kill them. In a reply to Twitter, Bukhari said Rizvi's speeches violated the law because he was inciting violence against state officials. "In my tweet I am asking[the] government to take action against him. In which world is that illegal?" she wrote. Siddiqui, who left Pakistan after a failed abduction attempt he blames on the powerful military over his frequent social media criticism, now lives in France and says he believes the complaint to Twitter came from his home country.

Business Live

Social activist Aadii Roy who is well-known for his bold stance on injustices in society as well as government and military actions on Friday shared that he had been threatened for exercising free speech. He made the revelation on social media website Twitter where he disclosed that someone had tried to intimidate him using the names of his family members. There is nothing important than family for us,i have been threatened again taking my siblings names.May Allah protect us. - (@Aadiiroy) October 17, 2018 Many notable personalities from the journalist community including Gul Bukhari condemned the action. Threats to #AadiRoy & family are despicable - Gul Bukhari (@GulBukhari) October 18, 2018 Stay strong man; the bullying seems to be because of your outspokenness. In solidarity!#AadiRoy #Pakistan https://t.co/BLaSvphsCO - Mohammad Taqi (@mazdaki) October 18, 2018 Social Media Advisor Faisal Ranjha also came out in support of Aadii Roy, mentioning his own story of being in a similar situation. Hi @Aadiiroy we all are with you, once I received a call and my sons name was used to threaten me .. Irony is the guy didn't had clue about me and my credentials yet they threatened me .. They don't care hopefully PMLN take care of their Family! @MaryamNSharif - Faisal Ranjha (@ranjha001) October 19, 2018 Members of the public offered their support too. If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear. #AadiRoy - Humaira B. Minhas (@humairabadar) October 18, 2018 Earlier on Wednesday, senior journalist Matiullah Jan, who has been critical of the government and the establishment's interference in the political affairs was asked to tender in his resignation within 24 hours. His social media account was accused of spreading "negative propaganda' against state institutions. Furthermore, Pakistani impressionist and comedian Syed Shafaat Ali, who is known for his impressions of Pakistani public figures, tweeted that an advertisement he had appeared in had been taken off air as part of media censorship by the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA).

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