On August 23, 2022, freelance Pakistani journalist Syed Fawad Ali Shah went missing in the Malaysian capital of Kuala Lumpur. Shah had lived in Malaysia as a registered refugee since 2011, according to his wife Syeda, who spoke with Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).
Syeda, who asked to be identified by her first name, said that Shah fled Pakistan after he was abducted by agents of the country's military intelligence agency, the ISI, who held him for three and a half months while beating and threatening him in retaliation for his reporting that unfavorably portrayed Pakistan's security forces during the U.S. war on terror.
In January 2023, Malaysian Home Minister Saifuddin Nasution Ismail said in a press conference that Shah had been deported in late August at the request of Pakistani authorities, who alleged that he was a police officer subject to disciplinary proceedings.
Syeda told CPJ that Shah never worked as a police officer, and she believed the ISI worked with Malaysian authorities to repatriate him in retaliation for his journalism. While in exile, Shah wrote about politics and alleged corruption in Pakistan, particularly within law enforcement agencies.
On February 8, 2023, Syeda learned that Shah was being held at the Adiala Jail in the Pakistani city of Rawalpindi, and visited him there the following day. Shah told her that authorities had held him for five months in an underground cell in Islamabad, where they abused him, she said.
In a petition filed at an Islamabad magistrate and dated February 7, 2023, which CPJ reviewed, the Cyber Crime Circle of the Islamabad division of the Federal Investigation Agency claimed that Shah was arrested on January 26, 2023, in relation to an investigation opened the previous January for alleged offenses under the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act (PECA), 2016, and three sections of the penal code pertaining to defamation, criminal intimidation, and obstruction of a public servant.
CPJ has repeatedly documented how the PECA has been used to detain, investigate, and harass journalists in retaliation for their work.
Arshad Sharif assassinated
Tellingly, one of Pakistan's top news anchors Arshad Sharif, who fled Pakistan to avoid arrest over sedition charges a few months back, was shot dead in Kenya in October 2022.
The 49-year-old journalist was living in exile in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) after he fled the country in August to avoid arrest in the wake of multiple cases, including sedition charges, slapped against him for making comments on his show deemed offensive to the military. From the UAE he was forced to flee and took refuge in Kenya where he was assassinated in mysterious circumstances.
Arhsad Sharif was working on a documentary about corruption of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and his family. Nawaz Sharif was sacked because of corruption in July 2017.
In March 2022, Arshad Sharif exposed opposition leaders and workers meetings with the U.S. officials Pakistan prior to the vote of no confidence against Prime Minister of Pakistan. The vote of no confidence was passed and Imran Khan's government was dismissed.
(Article changed on Mar 22, 2023 at 3:43 PM EDT)
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