KARACHI: Leader of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf and former federal information minister Fawad Chaudhry has once again attacked journalists, he has warned that a list of some journalists criticizing the judges is being prepared and their boycott is being demanded.
And this is not the first time that a PTI leader has issued such threats. He had issued similar threatening statements against journalists and judges several times in the past to undermine their independent way of working, reported JEE News.
Pakistan’s ranking on Reporters Without Borders’ (RWB) freedom of expression index dropped by six points during the first two years of PTI’s rule. Pakistan’s ranking on the index was 139th out of 180 countries in 2018 and it has moved to 145th in 2020. In RWB’s 2022 report for the year 2021, Pakistan’s ranking dropped further to 157th. This shows the state of press freedom in Pakistan when Fawad Chaudhry was the Federal Minister of Information.
The #ArrestAntiPakJournalists trend on Twitter was started during the PTI regime. According to an investigative report by Digital Rights Monitor, the trend was propagated on Twitter with 57,000 tweets and retweets between July 4 and July 5, 2019.
Journalists in Pakistan came under constant trolling attacks during the previous PTI regime.
Relevant international and Pakistani watchdogs such as RWB, CPJ, IFJ, Amnesty International and HRCP have consistently condemned the actions taken to undermine freedom of expression under the PTI regime. Statements have been issued. During all this period, Fawad Chaudhry made continuous efforts to get the controversial Media Development Authority Bill passed, due to which he faced strong opposition from the relevant representative organizations of journalists in Pakistan.
Fawad Chaudhry has once again started targeting journalists even though he is no longer in power. In a tweet on March 26, 2023, he demanded the arrest of two journalists critical of PTI. He later claimed that he had started preparing a list of journalists who were critical of the PTI so that they could be boycotted.
He also alleged that some journalists were running a paid propaganda campaign to defame the judges. It should be noted that Fawad Chaudhry has made threatening statements against judges several times in the past and present.
The former federal information minister had once warned that no one would dare to order Imran Khan’s disqualification as one who would take such a bold step would not be allowed to leave Islamabad. He said that anyone who is thinking about such an option should consider his stature before saying such a thing.
Fawad Chaudhry while participating in a TV show said that the survival of Imran Khan will be threatened.
When the reference was disposed of against Justice Qazi Faiz Isa, he claimed that he had opposed the filing of such a reference during the PTI regime. It should be noted that Justice Isa’s wife Sarina Isa had applied to initiate contempt of court proceedings against Fawad Chaudhry, on which she had given Justice Isa’s statement. However, no action was taken on the request.
Appearing on TV, the former federal information minister said that he had opposed filing such a reference as initiating such proceedings would be seen as an attempt by the government to put pressure on the judiciary.
It is worth mentioning here that before joining PTI, Fawad Chaudhry had worked as the spokesperson of former President Pervez Musharraf and in later stages was associated with Muslim League (Q) and People’s Party. Appearing on a TV talk show at that time, he once said that he believed that PTI and Jamaat-e-Islami acted as if they were the political wing of Tehreek-e-Taliban.
