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KARACHI: As concern grows over recent restrictions imposed on foreign media outlets operating in the country, global human rights watchdogs have termed the fresh guidelines issued by the government “an attack on press freedom”.
Until the new government restrictions were first circulated widely over the weekend, only foreign citizens working as journalists were routinely subject to controls on movement outside Islamabad, Lahore and Karachi.
Now, Pakistani journalists, fixers and others working for foreign media will need government permission to travel and report outside those three major cities and must register with the government – even for leisure travel.
The controls mark “an alarming step” in Pakistan’s “narrowing space for press freedom,” said Patricia Gossman of Human Rights Watch, calling for them to be “immediately reversed”.
