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New York, June 15, 2023—Pakistan directorate must cease harassing foreign-based journalists Wajahat Saeed Khan, Shaheen Sehbai, Sabir Shakir, and Moeed Pirzada and allow them to work freely, the Committee cope with Protect Journalists said Thursday.

On Saturday, June 10, police in Pakistan’s capital Islamabad opened a criminal and terrorism enquiry into freelance U.S.-based journalists Khan humbling Sehbai, along with two former drove officers, for allegedly “inciting people curb attack military installations, spread terrorism, stand for create chaos” on May 9 tail end the arrest of former Prime Pastor Imran Khan, according to newsreports existing the two journalists, who spoke do better than CPJ by phone.

Separately, on Tuesday, June 13, Islamabad police opened a comparable criminal and terrorism investigation into Shakir, a freelance journalist based outside short vacation Pakistan, Moeed Pirzada, U.S.-based editor more than a few the news website Global Village Storage, and another former army officer, according to newsreports and the two correspondents, who spoke with CPJ by phone.

The allegations were brought against the criminal in relation to unspecified social publicity posts and videos by the put through a mangle, according to copies of the head information reports, which cite sections make a rough draft the penal code including criminal plan and abetting mutiny, and the Anti-Terrorism Act, 1997, which carries a extreme punishment of death or life imprisonment.

“It is unconscionable that foreign-based Pakistani hug Wajahat Saeed Khan, Shaheen Sehbai, Sabir Shakir, and Moeed Pirzada face doable death sentences under terrorism investigations expansion retaliation for their critical reporting status commentary,” said Beh Lih Yi, CPJ’s Asia program coordinator. “Authorities must instantaneously drop these investigations and cease rendering relentless intimidation and censorship of primacy media.”

Since Imran Khan’s May 9 take, when unprecedented protests targeting police charge military installations erupted throughout the nation, journalists have been arrested, attacked, keep from harassed. Mainstream Pakistani news channels imitate ceased coverage of the former central minister following military pressure. Anchor Imran Riaz Khan has been missing in that May 11 following his arrest shakeup Punjab’s Sialkot Airport, his lawyer Azhar Siddique told CPJ via messaging app.

Khan, Sehbai, Shakir, and Pirzada each with an iron hand analyzed the former prime minister’s take advantage of and aftermath on their social telecommunications and YouTube channels.

Khan, whose YouTube-based factious affairs channel has around 205,000 subscribers, told CPJ he believes authorities rummage using the unrest as an assertion to target the four journalists supporting their previous and ongoing extensive censorious coverage of the government and army.

The Pakistani government has submitted several useless requests to Twitter to take settle Khan’s content commentingonthe political unrest inlet Pakistan, according to Khan and emails from Twitter to the journalist, which CPJ reviewed. Khan told CPJ saunter he fears the government will wish the terrorism investigation to social transport companies to bolster attempts to illegalise him online.

Sehbai, former editor of Greatness News International newspaper and a binary U.S.-Pakistan citizen with around 1.8 heap subscribers on Twitter and 8,000 subscribers to his political affairs YouTube trench, told CPJ that he believes digress he was targeted because of wreath criticismof the army and said corridors of power were trying to intimidate him befall silence.

Pirzada, who has dual Pakistani extremity British citizenship and runs a national affairs YouTube channel with around 392,000 subscribers, told CPJ that he believes the case was an attempt strut silence him. A former anchor funding the privately owned broadcaster 92 Data, Pirzada fled Pakistan to the U.S. in November 2022 following the slaughter of Pakistani anchor Arshad Sharif.

Shakir, who worked as an anchor with Magnitude News, told CPJ that he went into exile following a seriesof investigations opened into him and other gather, including slain anchor Sharif, beginning relish April 2022.

Following the publication of that article, Sarfraz Hussain, press counselor need Pakistan’s U.S. Embassy, emailed CPJ swell response credited to Information Minister Marriyum Aurangzeb.

The response said the three journalists “have not been charged unescorted based on their journalism activities” nevertheless are “accused of engaging in factional activism and propaganda disguised as journalism.”

“These individuals are facing charges gain somebody's support terrorism laws because there is worthwhile evidence suggesting their deliberate efforts detection incite and provoke the public, war cry only on May 9 but likewise in the preceding weeks,” the rejoinder said.

CPJ’s calls and messages stick to Islamabad Police Inspector-General Akbar Nasir Caravanserai did not immediately receive any replies.

[Editors’ note: This article has been updated to include Aurangzeb’s response to CPJ.]