FOTP 2013 Full Report

eligious issues and certain militant groups and political parties. Cable operators occasionallypressure media outlets to censor views that could conflict with their business interests.Censorship of digital content is a growing concern. While websites and blogs addressingsensitive subjects, particularly Balochi separatism, are routinely blocked, the government movedto block “blasphemous” material as well beginning in 2010. This trend continued in 2012, withattempts to censor websites and mobile-telephone content. On three separate occasions, thegovernment temporarily shut down mobile service in Balochistan, ostensibly in the interest ofnational security. In February, the government called for proposals for a filtering and blockingsystem with the ability to block up to 50 million URLs simultaneously. A global network ofnongovernmental organizations (NGOs) campaigned against the creation of such censorshipinfrastructure, and as a result, a number of prominent international corporations publicly agreednot to pursue the contract. In March it was reported that the project had been abandoned, and inApril Pakistan’s High Court ruled that such site blocking must desist as it was in violation of dueprocess and constitutional protections for free expression. Nevertheless, the government brieflyblocked the microblogging service Twitter in May due to user messages that were considered“offensive to Islam.” In September, the government blocked the video-sharing site YouTube inresponse to unrest surrounding a controversial anti-Islam film; it remained blocked at year’s end.Separately, a cyberattack shut down the website of the Friday Times weekly in April, followingcritical articles on the role of the military and its Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency inpolitics. The e-mail accounts of some journalists are reportedly monitored.The physical safety of journalists remains a key concern. Intimidation by intelligenceagencies and the security forces—including physical attacks and arbitrary, incommunicadodetention—continues to take place. In 2011, Syed Saleem Shahzad, an investigative reporter andauthor whose work focused on Islamist militancy, was abducted, tortured, and killed, allegedlyby the ISI; Shahzad had previously received threats from the agency. Amid an outcry followinghis death, an official commission was established to investigate the murder. In its January 2012final report, the panel failed to identify those responsible and acknowledged that police did noteven question members of the ISI. No arrests were made in the case.Radical Islamists, mercenaries hired by feudal landlords or local politicians, partyactivists, security forces, and police have been known to harass journalists and attack mediaoffices. Reporters regularly face physical and verbal intimidation. In response to scathingcoverage of an October 2012 attack on teenage education activist Malala Yousafzai by Talibanmilitants, Taliban leaders called for the targeting of media organizations and journalists acrossthe country. In June, gunmen fired on the offices of the private Urdu-language television outletAaj TV, inflicting injuries on security personnel. In November, a bomb was discovered under thecar of news anchor Hamid Mir. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), at leastseven journalists were murdered in connection with their work in 2012, making Pakistan one ofthe world’s deadliest countries for members of the press. While some of these reporters weredeliberately assassinated, others were killed as they attempted to cover unfolding political eventsor bombings. In January, two Taliban gunmen killed journalist Mukarram Khan Aatif of Voiceof America’s Pashto-language service at a mosque north of Peshawar in retaliation for his anti-Taliban reporting. In May, the senior editor and head of magazines at Dawn Media Group,Murtaza Razvi, was found strangled to death in a wealthy area of Karachi. In October, journalistMushtaq Khand of Dharti Television Network was one of six people killed when gunmen openedfire on a political rally. In November, photographer Saqib Khan of the Urdu-language paperUmmat was killed in Karachi by a remote-detonated bomb while covering a prior explosion that298