The Committee to Protect Journalists said on Thursday that Pakistani authorities must release journalist Imran Riaz Khan immediately and ensure that journalists can work freely and without fear of retaliation.
According to news reports and a statement issued by the Pakistan Press Foundation, a local press freedom group, police in the evening of Tuesday, July 5 arrested Khan, an anchor for the privately owned broadcaster Express News and host of a YouTube channel with over 3 million subscribers.
According to those reports, a complaint filed with the authorities in Attock, in the northeastern Punjab province, led to his arrest by police. On Thursday, a court in Attock ordered Khan to be released, but immediately following his release, police from the Punjabi city of Chawkal reportedly re-arrested him outside the courtroom.
Carlos Martinez de la Serna, the program director for CPJ, stated, "The repeated arrests of Pakistani journalist Imran Riaz Khan and the slew of cases registered against him are pure harassment, and must come to an immediate end." Khan must be released immediately by the authorities, and journalists must be allowed to freely and safely comment on state institutions, including the military.
According to CPJ reporting and The Express Tribune, Khan is a vocal critic of the government led by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and a supporter of former Prime Minister Imran Khan, who was ousted from power in April and is not related to the journalist.
In a video distributed on his YouTube channel on Monday, addressed to Armed force Boss General Qamar Javed Bajwa, Khan claimed that entertainers inside the military were compromising him for scrutinizing the tactical's job in political undertakings.
In response to a complaint filed by a man named Malik Mureed Abbas, Attock police arrested Khan the following day in Islamabad. The complaint cited an unidentified social media video that featured Khan, according to news reports.
CPJ couldn't track down any contact data for Abbas. Dawn was informed by Khan's attorney, Mian Ali Ashfaq, that the journalist had been named in 17 distinct Punjab cases. When reached by means of informing application, Ashfaq let CPJ know that he couldn't promptly remark.
Dawn reported on Wednesday that Khan had been accused of violating various sections of the 2016 Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act and Pakistan's penal code, including defamation and the publication of statements that are conducive to public mischief.
As per the reformatory code, those offenses can convey jail sentences of two to seven years and a vague fine. That Day break report said a court had requested specialists not to seek after charges under the PECA.
According to The Express Tribune, a court ordered Khan to be released on Thursday, but police immediately re-arrested him as part of a “sealed” investigation whose specifics have not been made public.
For clarification, CPJ emailed Pakistan's Embassy spokesperson Sarfraz Hussain and the Punjab Police, but neither party responded. CPJ also used a messaging app to get in touch with Ambreen Jan, director general of the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting's external publicity wing.
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