Pakistani journalist Imran Riaz Khan arrested for defaming institutions

Lahore: Senior Pakistani journalist Imran Riaz Khan was arrested on Thursday by authorities for a second time for his statements defaming the country's state institutions, especially the powerful Army.

Khan, the BOL News anchor and a staunch supporter of ousted prime minister Imran Khan, was leaving for the UAE, reportedly to escape action against him by the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz-led government, when the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) detained him at the Lahore airport and shifted him to its provincial headquarters for interrogation. He was booked under different sections of the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act 2016 and the Pakistan Penal Code for hate speech, defaming state institutions, especially the army, violence-inducing statements, creating a rift between the general public and the state institutions, incitement to mutiny, and public mischief.

According to the FIR, Khan targeted the military leadership on its pledge to remain neutral and made a video that went viral on social media.

He was also critical of the Pakistan Army leadership for their role in politics.

This is not the first time the journalist has been arrested. He was arrested by the FIA a few months ago on similar charges and subsequently got bail from the Lahore High Court.

Khan is critical of former Army chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa and those in the incumbent army who support the federal coalition government.

“Imran Riaz Khan has been taken into custody by the FIA. We can safely say that human rights are completely non-existent in Pakistan, a fascist state where rule of law is absent,” Imran Khan's Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party said in a statement.

Since the PML-N-led coalition government took over in April 2022, cases against several anti-government and anti-military establishment journalists have been registered, primarily for hate speech.

Popular TV anchor Arshad Sharif who was critical of General Bajwa and other senior Inter-Services Intelligence officers was shot dead in Kenya, where he was hiding for his life after he was booked on charges of sedition and peddling an anti-state narrative by Pakistan's security agencies. Sharif’s mother blamed Bajwa and other senior officers for his assassination.