Pakistani journalist and ARY TV host Iqrar Ul Hassan has claimed that he and other members of his team were detained and tortured at his office in Karachi by members of Pakistan’s Intelligence Bureau. Hassan said that he was tortured when he attempted to expose rampant corruption in their ranks.
Hassan’s revelation came to light when pictures and videos of him bloodied up, in torn up clothes and receiving medical treatment on a hospital bed emerged on Twitter. Speaking to ARY News, the channel he works for, Hassan said that the members of the Intelligence Bureau tied him and other members of his team and subjected them to extreme forms of physical punishment. He said that he was stripped, blindfolded and then tortured for attempting to expose corruption in the IB. He said that the IB officials also shot videos of him naked and being punished.
Hassan said that “We were treated as a mole working for a foreign country”, a common tool of the Pakistani intelligence officials for prosecuting journalists and TV anchors.
It is pertinent to mention that Pakistan ranks at 145 in the Press Freedom Index of Reporters Without Borders (RSF), a global media watchdog. RSF says that journalists in Pakistan have become prime targets of the country’s “deep state”, a euphemism for the all-powerful military and the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). The watchdog argues that the military, the most powerful force in the country, cannot withstand independent journalism as it poses a direct threat to its integrity.
RSF also claims that several journalists were abducted in 2020 and instructed to ‘Stop covering unwelcome stories or your family won’t find you alive.’ The group said that after reining in the traditional media, the military and intelligence agencies have now set their eyes on regulating the flow of information on social media. The state has set up its trolls on social media to stalk journalists and flood their timelines with spam messages. Several journalists have also seen their accounts being reported and subsequently banned from social media.