Pakistan slips further in Press Freedom Index, down to 145th position

Pakistan is among one of the deadliest countries for journalists in South Asia as Islamabad has gone down by six points and slipped to 145th position this year in the global index of press freedom, local media reported on Sunday.

According to The News International, reporters Sans Frontiers has released the World Press Freedom Index 2021. According to its findings, two of the four deadliest countries for journalists are from South Asia including Pakistan and Afghanistan.

The newspaper also reported that Pakistan had occupied 139th position in 2017. In the past three years, the country has gone down by six points.

Freedom of the press has long been a problem in Pakistan but the situation has deteriorated markedly under Imran Khan government, which has dismissed allegations of attacks on the Pakistani press as a "joke".

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) had ranked Pakistan the fifth most dangerous place for the practice of journalism, with 138 media persons there having lost their lives in the line of duty between 1990 and 2020.

Since 2006, the country's government has begun targeting digital journalists as well.

In 2006 itself, over 1,000 websites were blocked by the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) after a Supreme Court ruling targeting online "blasphemy".

According to the DW report, it is estimated that the Pakistani government has allocated an estimated budget of USD 10 million towards internet filtering tools and blocking systems to control data.

( With inputs from ANI )

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