ISLAMABAD DECLARATION
The Islamabad Journalist Safety Forum 2022, held in the Pakistani capital on December 6, 2022, to mark the 10th anniversary of the UN Plan of Action on Safety of Journalists and the Issue of Impunity acknowledges the impact of the Plan in the Asian region in galvanizing broad-based support for safety of journalists and its link with media freedoms and functional democracy.
The Forum acknowledges the significant levels of collaboration among media, civil society, the State and international actors in many regions of Asia, including Pakistan, in pushing the journalists’ safety agenda to scales where they have become national agendas.
The Forum acknowledges the support of international actors such as the UN system, media support groups and other unilateral and multilateral forums in furthering the cause of safety of journalists and appeals for this support to continue on a sustained basis.
The Forum supported the movement for safety for journalists in Pakistan, the achievements made by the Pakistan Journalists Safety Coalition and its supporters in employing the UN Plan of Action in generating a critical mass of support for safety of journalists.
The Forum welcomes the participation in the Forum of the Prime Minister of Pakistan, Shehbaz Sharif, and his promise to prioritize the issue of safety of journalists. It called for the following steps in improving some of its successes against reducing violence against journalists to focus on now reducing the levels of impunity of crimes against journalists in Pakistan:
- Operationalize the safety commissions – the federal and Sindh laws must be activated to deliver on their promises.
- Universal protection: Blanket legal support for combating impunity of crimes against journalists – pass similar legislation on safety of journalists in Balochistan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Punjab.
- Zero qualifiers on benefitting from safety laws – the federal government must amend the federal law on safety of journalists to remove its Section 6 that forces journalists to prove ‘good faith’ to qualify to benefit from the law.
- Decriminalizing online dissent: Combating cybercrime is essential to safe internet but this must not be an excuse to hound media practitioners. Journalists must be taken out of the purview of any restriction on online expression through laws such as cybercrime law or other regulations.
- Safety of women journalists: The federal and provincial governments must announce support for an end to restrictions, attacks and intimidation of women journalists, both offline and online because without women freely able to practice journalism, Pakistan cannot have public interest journalism.
- Election commitment: Ahead of the general elections next year, all political parties registered with the Election Commission of Pakistan must include a separate section in their manifesto guaranteeing safety of journalists, freedom of expression and right to information.
