CPJ report

The Committee for the Protection of Journalists (CPJ)’s annual report for 2024 has said that the year was the deadliest for journalists in recent history, with an estimated 124 reporters killed in the line of duty. The report, released on Wednesday, says that this marks a 22 per cent increase over 2023 and reflects a global scene where conflict, criminality and political unrest are in ascendance. Journalists were murdered across 18 different countries last year, making it the deadliest since record-keeping began almost three decades ago. The vast majority, however, were killed at the hands of just one state: Israel. It turns out that after all the lofty lectures from the Zionist state and its Western, mainly American, partners about how it is the ‘Middle East’s only democracy’ and a haven for tolerance and free expression, no one has been more proficient at killing those at the vanguard of these principles. A total of 85 journalists are thought to have died during Israel’s genocide in Gaza, “all at the hands of the Israeli military”. An estimated 82 of these journalists were Palestinians, as those familiar with the operations of the Zionist state would expect. However, while Pakistan certainly has the moral authority to lecture Israel, and others like it, when it comes to genocidal policies and illegal occupation, it may well not have the high ground when it comes to the protection of journalists itself. Trailing Israel on the dead journalists’ list are Pakistan and Sudan, with six journalists killed in each country in 2024.

These statistics reflect a failure of our state to protect journalists from targeted violence. Nor is this shortcoming limited to just one bad year, with an estimated 39 journalists having been murdered in Pakistan since 1992 as of 2024. Failure to protect journalists from violence is just one of the ways in which the Pakistani state lets those in the fourth pillar of democracy down. All too often, it passes legislation that makes doing their job almost illegal, sending the signal to journalists that their work is really not wanted in the country. The latest amendment to the Peca law is a case in point, penalising individuals for spreading ‘fake news’ on social media. The law’s broad and ambiguous language, critics argue, opens the door for arbitrary enforcement, potentially silencing anyone deemed critical of the government. Some experts have gone so far as to claim that, under the current laws, only reporting on the weather will remain legal. All of this is done with an undertone that journalists who try and do their job and hold the powerful to account are somehow being unpatriotic and are undermining the nation. As such, an environment is created in which media professionals become de-facto permissible targets for vilification, compounding the problems generated by their targeting at the hands of extremist elements and criminals.

Pakistan and the world have a long way to go when it comes to giving journalists the protections that they deserve. Without them, there simply can be no functioning democracy. Given this fact, it is small wonder that the biggest opponent of freedom and democracy around today has also been responsible for the most journalist deaths. While it might be pertinent to ask why the US, the self-proclaimed global champion of free expression, does not do more to protect Palestinian journalists from its main ally, such queries have been rendered moot by the events since October 7, 2023. The simple fact is that reporters and others who seek to uncover the truth do not have any major allies in the world today. And yet, duty compels them to put their lives on the line and keep at it.