Category: Pakistan

Challenging the squeeze on media freedom

     

  Advocates for independent news media used Sunday’s World Press Freedom Day to call attention to what’s been dubbed the “coronavirus crackdown,” CNN reports. Journalists in numerous countries have been harassed, threatened… Read more »

A post-pandemic democratic renaissance?

     

  As leading authoritarian states exploit that Covid-19 pandemic to pursue a strategy of “co-option, coercion, and concealment,” as H.R. McMaster has summarized it, the old liberal order may rapidly… Read more »

‘Changing the Face of Politics’: Women shaking Pakistan’s patriarchy

     

He calls himself “Pakistan’s biggest feminist”, but soap opera writer Khalil-ur-Rehman Qamar sparked a national row this week after he hurled abuse at a women’s rights activist on live television,… Read more »

Politicians help military damage Pakistan’s democratic prospects

     

Manzoor Pashteen, the leader of an activist group that denounces abuses of power by Pakistan’s military, was arrested (HT:CFR) on charges including sedition and intimidation. Amnesty International called for Pashteen’s… Read more »

Mapping digital disinformation

     

If digital platforms are the “new battleground” for democracy, as the new  2019 “Freedom on the Net” report from Freedom House suggests, the experience of Pakistan demonstrates the challenges of… Read more »

Women’s rights activist seeks ‘civil supremacy’ in Pakistan

     

A Pakistani human rights activist who spoke out against the army has fled the country after months in hiding. Gulalai Ismail (above, far right) is now in the US, having eluded… Read more »