‘Concerned’ by restrictions on media outlets in Pakistan — US secretary of state

ISLAMABAD: In a ‘World Press Freedom Day Roundtable,’ Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the United States was ‘concerned’ by restrictions on media and civil society in Pakistan, saying they were a threat to exercising the right to freedom of expression and association in Pakistan. 
The Committee to Protect Journalists has ranked Pakistan number nine on its annual Global Impunity Index, which spotlights countries where journalists are slain and their killers go free. A total of 65 journalists and media workers were killed worldwide in 2020, including nine in Pakistan, while doing their jobs, according to the International Federation of Journalists.
“Look, with regard to freedom of the press in Pakistan, we are concerned by significant restrictions on media outlets, on civil society more broadly, and these are not – these are not new concerns,” Blinken said. “But media and content restrictions as well as a lack of accountability for attacks, disappearances against journalists clearly are a threat to the ability to exercise the right to freedom of expression and association in Pakistan.”
The secretary of state said the United States had documented some of these violations in its Country Reports on Human Rights practices, and “we see media outlets, journalists, their families in Pakistan often subject to threats, harassment at the hands of security forces, political parties, militants, other groups, all of which you’re well familiar with.”
He added: “We of course regularly raise these issues and concerns in our conversations and in our meetings with our counterparts in Pakistan. And we also make them public. We’ve publicly noted our concern over the arrest of prominent media figures, for example, for their work. Sometimes the most effective thing we can do, over time at least, is to shine a light on practices that we find objectionable and also have others do the same, and hopefully that has an impact. But our open and honest engagement with Pakistan enables us, I think, to have an ongoing, sustained dialogue on human rights issues more broadly, and more specifically when it comes to press freedom, the rule of law, religious freedom, even as we collaborate in a number of areas where we have very clear mutual interests.”
The Pakistan government denies it censors the press.
In an interview to Arab News last month, then information minister Shibli Faraz said: “There is no concept of media censorship in the country, whatsoever ... Media in Pakistan enjoys complete independence and freedom to report, be it politics, economy or any other sphere.”