Keeping truth alive.

A DIRECT correlation can be drawn between a state's response to attacks on journalists and the freedom of its press. Where there is impunity for a crime as egregious as murdering someone in search of answers, it inevitably follows that numerous non-fatal tactics to intimidate and coerce the press are even more rampant. It is indicative of a concerted effort to suppress the truth: typically, a pervasive climate of unchecked corruption and systemic injustice. As recently highlighted by the Committee to Protect Journalists in its annual Global Impunity Index, for 12 consecutive years, Pakistan continues to remain among the company of other states 'where journalists are slain and their killers go free'. Today, on International Day to End Impunity for Crimes Against Journalists, this ignominious scorecard merits scrutiny. Despite a relative reduction in violence in recent years, why is it that the press in Pakistan today is still far from able to operate freely, under peaceful and just conditions?

The reality is that successive governments have either been reluctant or recalcitrant in actively pursuing the course of...

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