Plot to silence a Pakistani journalist uncovered
October 31, 2025
Defending Those Who Speak for Truth
November 1, 2025
October 31, 2025 – General –
In a strongly worded statement dated 30 October 2025, the Committee to Protect Journalists emphasizes that the dramatic rise in violence against media workers demands radical structural reforms, not just symbolic observances. The organization notes that the number of journalists killed, abducted, or subject to enforced disappearance is reaching unprecedented levels, yet accountability mechanisms remain fragmented and weak.
CPJ highlights that many countries routinely fail to launch meaningful investigations into attacks on journalists, fostering a climate of impunity that emboldens perpetrators and chills press freedom. The statement underscores how silence from global institutions and nominal domestic action amount to complicity, eroding the public’s right to know.
Importantly, CPJ underscores that this crisis is not confined to frontline war zones — from legislative censorship to corporate capture, from imprisonment of correspondents to digital surveillance and harassment, the threats to journalists have diversified and multiplied. They call on governments to adopt concrete reforms, including binding international treaties, independent investigative bodies for crimes against media professionals, and safe-exit protocols for endangered journalists.
The declaration stresses that press freedom must be treated as integral to democracy and human rights — not as an optional add-on. CPJ argues that when journalists are silenced, societies lose not only individual voices but vital watchdog functions that hold power to account, exposing corruption, injustice, and abuse. The statement warns that without a swift remedy, the widening impunity gap will persist, depriving citizens worldwide of critical information and undermining the rule of law.
In this context, the message is clear: the recurring slogan of “justice delayed” cannot be tolerated when truth-tellers are under threat. CPJ urges global institutions, national governments, media outlets, and civil-society actors to act in unison — to stop the silence around attacks, to demand transparency in investigations, and ultimately to ensure that those who jeopardize journalists cannot continue to operate with impunity.
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