CPJ calls for immediate release of Pakistan journalist Matiullah Jan

New Delhi, Nov 28: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) on Thursday urged Pakistan authorities to release senior journalist Matiullah Jan immediately and unconditionally. It also emphasized upon the authorities to allow journalists to carry out their professional duties without any harm.

“CPJ is dismayed by the arrest of Pakistani journalist Matiullah Jan following his coverage of protests in Islamabad,” said Beh Lih Yi, CPJ’s Asia program coordinator. “The Pakistani authorities must immediately and unconditionally release Jan and ensure that journalists are not subjected to retaliation for their reporting.”

On November 28, an anti-terrorism court in Pakistan’s capital, Islamabad, ordered Jan, an anchor with NEO TV Network, to remain in detention for two days after his arrest at a security checkpoint following an alleged altercation with police, according to news reports and Jan’s lawyer, Imaan Zainab Mazari-Hazir, who spoke to CPJ. Mazari-Hazir disputed the police account of the arrest, and Jan’s son, Abdul Razzaq, said in a social media post that his father and another journalist had been abducted by men in an unmarked vehicle from the parking lot of the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences the previous night.

The Islamabad police’s First Information Report (FIR) opening an investigation into Jan accuses the journalist of terrorism under Section 7 of the Anti-Terrorism Act (ATA) 1997 and the Pakistan Penal Code and with possessing narcotics the Control of Narcotic Substances Act (CNSA) 1997. The FIR, reviewed by CPJ, alleges that Jan was found in possession of 246 grams of methamphetamine when his vehicle was stopped.

Before his arrest, Jan had been reporting on this week’s protests by supporters of Pakistan’s jailed former prime minister, Imran Khan. News anchor Munizae Jahangir posted on social media platform X that Jan had been reporting from hospitals on those injured or killed by gunfire, and it “seems that’s why he has been arrested for his journalistic work.”

Jan has previously faced legal action in what he says was retaliation for critical commentary on Pakistani authorities and his press freedom activism. On July 21, 2020, he was abducted by a dozen men in Islamabad in a still-unresolved incident.

CPJ contacted via messaging app Pakistan’s information minister, Attaullah Tarar, on Jan’s detention but did not receive a response.