Journalist's disappearance.

THAT journalist Nafees Naeem's abduction was a brief one does not dilute the gravity of the crime committed against him. The senior assignment editor of Aaj TV channel was reportedly picked up on Monday afternoon near his Karachi residence by men in plainclothes travelling in a Vigo, a pattern repeated in so many cases of enforced disappearance that it has become a trope. Mr Naeem thankfully returned home safely in the early hours of Tuesday. Relief at this denouement should be accompanied by anger that he and his family had to suffer the ordeal at all and that journalists have once again been conveyed a sinister warning about how easily their fundamental rights can be violated - presumably if they do not 'toe the line'.

When it took up the reins of power, the PML-N-led coalition announced it was shutting down any nascent attempts made by the ousted PTI government to establish a single media regulatory body under a draconian law. Imran Khan's government was perhaps the most hostile to press freedom of all civilian set-ups in the country's history: journalists were harassed, physically attacked and disappeared, while...