Pakistan ranks 8th on the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ)’s 2019 Global Impunity Index, with 16 unsolved killings of journalists in the past 10 years. Of the 61 journalists murdered for their work since 1992, when CPJ first started keeping detailed records, partial justice has only been achieved in three cases.
On February 16, 2020, Aziz Memon, “who worked for the privately-owned Sindhi TV channel KTN News and the Sindhi-language Daily Kawish newspaper, was found strangled to death in an irrigation ditch yesterday near the town of Mehrabpur in the Naushahro Feroze District of Sindh province.” “The tragic murder of Aziz Memon deserves swift justice, which is something Pakistani authorities have repeatedly failed to deliver for journalists,” said CPJ Asia Program Coordinator Steven Butler. “Given the victim’s previous allegations of threats from local officials, it is essential that the investigation be free from political meddling.”
According to news reports “Memon released a video, now circulating on Twitter, in which he said officials of the opposition Pakistan People’s Party and local police had threatened him over his reporting. His reporting included allegations that individuals were paid to attend a widely publicized 2019 “train march,” in which PPP Chair Bilawal Bhutto Zardari stopped at train stations to give speeches. PPP Chair Bhutto Zardari issued a statement condemning the murder and called for a swift and impartial investigation.”
