KARACHI: Speakers at a seminar highlighted challenges to press freedom in the country, observing that society suffers when newsmen have to worry about the repercussions of speaking the truth.
The seminar on ‘Press Freedom and Challenging Conditions’ was organised by the Karachi Union of Journalists (KUJ) and the National Trade Union Federation (NTUF) at the Karachi Press Club on Tuesday.
Former caretaker chief minister and Sindh Human Rights Commission Chairman retired Justice Maqbool Baqar said that the Constitution does not treat freedom of expression as a favour extended to citizens. “Article 19 guarantees it, and Article 19-A guarantees the right to information because the framers understood that a citizen who cannot speak, and cannot know, cannot meaningfully participate in his own governance,” he said.
“The press in this country too often works under the shadow of informal advisories, cable pulls and directives that gag a story or a channel without ever taking the form of written, appealable order. Such action, precisely because it avoids paper, also avoids scrutiny. There is no order to challenge and no forum in which to be heard, only silence imposed and left unexplained,” he added.
Maqbool Baqar says country’s institutions and its press are not natural adversaries
He, however, said: “A country’s institutions and its press are not natural adversaries. They are meant to hold each other to account, in the shared service of the citizen.”
Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) Chairman Asad Iqbal Butt said that there have been more than five journalists killed last year while others faced torture. “When a journalist has to worry about the repercussions of speaking the truth, then society suffers,” he said.
Veteran journalist and human rights activist Hussain Naqi spoke about the situations in Balochistan and Azad Kashmir and said: “When you also don’t have information, which the media provides, you will be left completely ignorant.”
Journalist Mazhar Abbas said that today’s challenge is not about stopping news, it is being told about how to convey it. “Here journalists have been jailed and flogged while upholding press freedom. But press freedom never existed in Pakistan because the state itself kills news,” he said, while pointing out four major challenges being faced by the press, starting from media owners threatening to fire journalists.
“With bonuses and increments becoming a thing of the past, media employees feel grateful at being paid their salaries on time,” he said. The next challenge to press freedom, as pointed out by Mr Abbas, is the government’s control over ads. “This way if it is unhappy with a reporter or anchor, he or she is also shown the door.”
The third challenge is the divisions and factions within journalists unions that have put an end to unity and the fourth challenge is unseen.
“Even the government and media owners are rendered helpless by such unseen challenges as and no one knows where the orders are coming from,” he said, adding that without freedom of press, there is no democracy as you have an undeclared martial law.
Academic Dr Tauseef Ahmed Khan regretted how Balochistan is facing various operations for the last 22 years, the off and on sealing of the Quetta Press Club and the killings of the presidents and secretaries of the Khuzdar Press Club.
“The newspapers in Balochistan remain confused about what to report when they are facing curbs all around. And then we see a huge budget allocation for digital media in Balochistan even though they don’t have a digital media there,” he said.
Academic Dr Riaz Shaikh, NTUF President Nasir Mansoor, KUJ President Tahir Hasan Khan and Secretary Sardar Liaquat Kashmiri also spoke.
Published in Dawn, July 22nd, 2026