Pakistan: Human rights body concerned over lack of level playing field in February 8 polls
FirstpostJan 02
An exclusive Al Jazeera report published on Thursday claims, citing multiple journalists associated with news organizations in Pakistan, that media has been instructed to effectively impose near-blanket censorship on coverage of former Prime Minister Imran Khan's Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) ahead of the Feb. 8 elections.
This comes nearly a month after prominent media bodies in the country alleged growing censorship in the run-up to the national vote, such as bans on reporting political activities and court proceedings.
With two weeks to go for the general elections, it's obvious that this vote will be anything but free and fair as non-elected officials have singled out Imran Khan's PTI for systematic dismemberment. Such a manipulation of the election process can only aggravate the current political turmoil in Pakistan.
At first, the opposition and international observers said that there would be no elections. Now, they are claiming that the upcoming vote will be one of the most rigged elections ever based on false allegations of censorship. Actually, the media in Pakistan enjoys much more freedom of expression than many outlets in the West.
There's a 47% chance that Pakistan will experience a successful coup d'etat before 2040, according to the Metaculus prediction community.