Pak: 32 journalist harassment cases filed in a year in Islamabad
Nov 13, 2021
Islamabad [Pakistan], November 13 :As many as 32 journalist harassment cases filed in a year, according to police in Pakistan' Islamabad.
On Friday, Islamabad police informed Supreme Court that police had over the last one year, submitted to trial courts the cases of 32 persons suspected of involvement in 16 attempts on the lives of journalists or of assaulting them, Dawn reported.
A report on behalf of the deputy inspector general of police operations in Islamabad stated that out of 16 cases registered by police from September 13 last year to September 12 this year, four were still under investigation, the Pakistani publication reported.
According to Dawn, the report was furnished in compliance with a directive by a three-judge Supreme Court bench after it took up suo motu a complaint of harassment moved by the Press Association of the Supreme Court (PAS) on behalf of a journalist.
At the last hearing on September 13, the apex court in Pakistan had asked the chief of Islamabad police whether or not the reported attacks on journalists had been investigated and the culprits brought to book.
The IGP had told the court that some of the cases remained unsolved on account of insufficient evidence. But the court ordered the IGP to furnish a comprehensive report about all reported attacks on journalists over the past one year, the publication said.
Pakistan is one of the most dangerous places for journalists. Pakistan is ranked 145th out of 180 countries in RSF's (Reporters Without Borders) 2020 World Press Freedom Index.
Freedom Network, a media watchdog, said that 33 journalists were killed for their work between 2013 and 2019 in Pakistan.
The report also revealed that journalists who work in print media are twice more likely to be targets of legal action than those who work in electronic media.
Women journalists are even more at risk of violence and threats due to the strict patriarchal societal norms in Pakistan.
