TNR Watch: The Extraterritorial Impact of Pakistan’s Political Crisis

As a bitter dispute between Pakistan’s powerful armed forces and former prime minister Imran Khan has thrown the country into political crisis, exiled journalists and activists have found themselves in the military establishment’s crosshairs. The ongoing instability may embolden military leaders and the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) to expand an existing program of transnational repression to maintain power, as critics speak out to challenge their authority.

Crackdowns on criticism: Over the last several months, Pakistani authorities—under the influence of the military establishment—have sought to intimidate critics of the army at home and abroad. In June, police in Islamabad opened terrorism investigations against US-based Pakistani journalists Wajahat Saeed Khan, Shaheen Sehbai, and Moeed Pirzada over their reporting on Khan’s arrest. Pakistani law enforcement has also allegedly increased pressure on the relatives of exiles. Shahzad Akbar, a former minister in Khan’s government who now lives in exile in the United Kingdom, recently said that law enforcement detained his brother back home in an attempt to force Akbar to return to Pakistan and testify against the embattled former prime minister.

Pakistan’s transnational repression record: Authorities have a history of transnational repression against those who have run afoul of the military and ISI. In August 2022, at the request of Pakistan’s High Commission in Kuala Lumpur, the Malaysian government deported Pakistani journalist Syed Fawad Ali Shah, who had reported on enforced disappearances linked to the security services. Upon his return to Pakistan, Shah spent five months held at what he called “black sites,” where he was tortured; he was later presented with charges of defamation, intimidating officials, and spreading false news online. In another high-profile case, Netherlands-based political blogger Ahmed Waqass Goraya, whose blog focuses on the military’s poor human rights record, was attacked in Rotterdam in February 2020; Goraya claimed the assailant was acting on orders of Pakistani spy agencies. Two years later, a UK jury convicted a British man prosecutors said was hired by a middleman in Pakistan to kill Goraya.

Targeted individuals are regularly portrayed as acting against Pakistani state interests. An Interior Ministry memo leaked in 2020 accused six Pakistani journalists in Europe and the United States of “producing antistate content” using pseudonyms, and called on officials to “strictly follow their movements.” Some people have received warnings from local law enforcement in Europe and North America that their lives were potentially in danger.

A sign of things to come: As questions loom over when parliamentary elections will be held following the dissolution of the National Assembly in August, authorities are cracking down on free expression. As a result, exiled journalists are increasingly playing a critical role in sharing information with the public. In this tense environment, these critical voices are likely to remain targets of Pakistan’s security services and military as they work to silence dissent.