2023 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices: Pakistan

Summary

The US Department of State's annual human rights report on Pakistan, prepared by its Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, covers 2023. It states that there were no significant changes in the human rights situation during the year and lists credible reports of serious abuses, including unlawful or arbitrary killings, among them extrajudicial killings; enforced disappearance; torture; arbitrary detention; political prisoners; transnational repression; and arbitrary interference with privacy.

Among the significant issues it identifies are serious restrictions on freedom of expression and the media, including violence against journalists, unjustified arrests and disappearances of journalists, censorship, criminal defamation laws and laws against blasphemy, as well as serious restrictions on internet freedom. The report adds that the government rarely took credible steps to identify and punish officials who may have committed abuses.

On expression, the report notes that the constitution protects free speech and a free press subject to "reasonable restrictions" in the interest of "the glory of Islam," national security, public order, decency or morality, and that court decisions interpreted the constitution as prohibiting criticism of the military and the judiciary. It describes threats, harassment, abductions, violence and killings that led journalists and editors to practise self-censorship, and says the military's media wing, the media regulator PEMRA and the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) enforced censorship through a variety of tactics. Rights activists reported that the government asked X (formerly Twitter) to take down accounts of activists. It records the killing of crime reporter Hasnain Shah outside the Lahore Press Club in January.

The internet freedom section describes a nationwide content-monitoring and filtering system used to block "unlawful" content, including material deemed un-Islamic, pornographic or critical of the state or military, with poor transparency and vague criteria. The PTA's Web Analysis Division reviews content for removal while the Federal Investigation Agency handles prosecutions. In February, authorities blocked Wikipedia over allegedly "blasphemous content" until the prime minister ordered the block removed a few days later. On May 9, the PTA shut down mobile internet nationwide during the protests that followed former prime minister Imran Khan's arrest and then limited access to social media. Dating and live-streaming apps remained blocked, and long-term communications shutdowns were reported in rural Balochistan.

On religion, the report notes that blasphemy laws restrict free speech about religion, with the death penalty for defiling the Prophet Muhammad; no one has been executed for blasphemy, but accusations often prompted vigilantism and mob lynching. In August, a crowd of about 6,000 people in Jaranwala, Punjab, burned 21 churches and damaged more than 90 Christian properties after two Christian brothers were accused of blasphemy.

The report also covers restrictions on peaceful assembly, including mass arrests under public order laws after May 9, gender-based violence, and abuses by militant groups, whose attacks caused hundreds of casualties during the year.

Summary written by a Silenced editor from the report itself (466 words). Quotes and figures are the report's; read the full report for its sources and context.