By Engr. Iftikhar Chaudhry
Throughout history, nations have grappled with the uneasy balance between power and truth. Nowhere is this tension more visible than in societies where the press claims to be free but operates under invisible shackles. In Pakistan, the narrative of “freedom of expression” has been woven and unwoven countless times, yet the bird of free speech has never truly left its cage. The cage changes shape—sometimes the bars loosen, sometimes they tighten—but the confinement remains. To mistake this managed breathing space for liberty is to deceive ourselves.
The truth is simple yet bitter: journalism in Pakistan has rarely been in danger; what has been perpetually endangered is honesty, integrity, and the audacity to speak truth to power. When silence becomes complicity, when outrage is selective, when truth is sacrificed at the altar of expediency, what we are left with is not journalism but spectacle.
The story is as old as the Republic itself. Whenever a voice has dared to dissent, it has been silenced; whenever a pen has challenged authority, it has been broken. Take the tragic example of Arshad Sharif, a fearless traveler in pursuit of truth, cut down by bullets in the darkness of a Kenyan night. His blood soaked foreign soil while the high priests of journalism at home looked away, murmuring that “everything is fine.” Arshad Sharif was not merely a journalist; he embodied the supremacy of the Constitution and the voice of the common citizen. Yet his martyrdom was smothered beneath indifference. Not once did the chorus declare: “Journalism is in danger.”
When Imran Riaz Khan was abducted into the shadows, tortured until he returned a skeletal wreck, his speech slurred, his gait broken—journalism was still declared “safe.” His ordeal was not just the destruction of a man; it was a brutal message to an entire generation: “Do not speak the truth, or this will be your fate.” When Moeed Pirzada, Sabir Shakir, Zubair Ali Khan, and dozens of other journalists were forced into exile, stripped of their homeland, their identities, and their sense of belonging—there was no outcry. No editorials, no resolutions. When the veteran Ayaz Amir was humiliated in public, his clothes torn, his dignity shredded, when Orya Maqbool Jan was abducted in broad daylight, when Jameel Farooqui was stripped and beaten, the grand custodians of press freedom remained silent. Journalism, we were told, was still safe.
And yet, what an irony we witness today. A political activist, Tayyab Baloch, disrupted Aleema Khan’s press conference with noise, slurs, and ridicule. When he was dragged out, suddenly the entire journalistic community cried in unison: “Journalism is under threat!” A handful of protesters gathered—barely twenty-five in number, with hardly a dozen journalists among them—to declare a national emergency for free speech. Let us be clear: the right to question, to criticize, even to confront authority, is the lifeblood of journalism. But when the objective is not critique but humiliation—throwing eggs, hurling abuse, disrupting events—then the reaction that follows is not an assault on journalism but a natural response to thuggery. To cloak such antics under the noble banner of “press freedom” is intellectual dishonesty of the highest order.
Where were these self-proclaimed guardians of journalism when blood was spilled, when bones were broken, when livelihoods were stolen, when speaking the name or showing the image of a popular leader was criminalized? Why was silence the default? Why does the chorus rise only when their own comfort is threatened? This duplicity is eating away at the very soul of our society.
The harsh truth is this: journalism has never truly been independent here. Too often it has been enslaved—not to truth, but to power. How can those whose careers depend on the nod of their patrons pretend to be the custodians of free expression? This entire performance is orchestrated by a government imposed through Form-47, not through genuine representation. Until this nation has leaders chosen by the people rather than engineered outcomes, freedom of the press will remain a hollow slogan.
With my hand on my heart, I say this: true freedom of journalism will arrive only when journalists rise above fear and beyond the security of their paychecks, when they decide their pens are not for sale but are weapons for truth. History is recording everything: the martyrdom of Arshad Sharif, the humiliation of Imran Riaz, the exile of Moeed Pirzada, the disgrace of Ayaz Amir, the disappearance of Orya Maqbool Jan, the torture of Jameel Farooqui. One day, these pages will open, and the double-faced actors of today will stand exposed.
The real question is not what Tayyab Baloch did in that hall. The real question is: why was journalism silent during the long night of oppression? Why did conscience sleep when blood was shed, when voices were broken, when families were destroyed? Why does danger exist only when the wound is personal? Let it be known: the true guardians of free expression are not those who cry foul at personal insult. They are those who, regardless of whose back bears the lash, stand against tyranny and refuse to bow. And this struggle is far from over.
