![]() Human Rights Watch (HRW) called out Khan’s government in its 2021 report, noting that efforts to control media and contain dissent included violent attacks on journalists such as Absar Alam, who was shot outside his house Asad Ali Toor, who was bound, gagged, and beaten in his home and talk show host Hamid Mir, who was taken off the air. Still living with the culture of fear and self-censorship that Khan exacerbated, most Pakistani journalists are unwilling to speak openly against the government or the all-powerful Army that backs it. He used similar bans against his own political enemies, and journalists were brutally targeted for critical reporting. ![]() There are concerns about clumsy censorship- Dawn newspaper called the ban “a thinly disguised warning to the media to stay in line”-but Khan is widely reviled for his abuse of freedoms during a foreshortened premiership, which ended when Parliament voted him out of office in April 2022. Human rights defenders and journalists have shown little sympathy for Khan, who has tried to portray himself as the anti-establishment answer to all of Pakistan’s problems. ![]() Khan himself could be facing arrest within weeks as the state builds its case against him, said Hassan Abbas, a professor of international relations at the National Defense University in Washington. In recent weeks, members of Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party have been arrested and jailed, while others quit. ![]() The ban seems to be the latest salvo in the state’s war on its most vocal and intransigent opponent. It’s another move by the state aimed at crushing any chance Khan has of regaining the top office-using, ironically enough, the very weapons he wielded to browbeat political foes. The government of Pakistan has taken a big step in its march toward autocracy by throwing a blanket media ban over former Prime Minister Imran Khan, its latest attempt to silence the most electable politician the country has seen in decades. ![]()
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