Imran Khan not the only one silenced as Pakistan military stifles dissent

Pakistan's jailed former prime minister Imran Khan hasn't seen any visitors in more than five weeks, according to his party.

His family say this is partly to stop his words reaching the outside world. They blame the country's military chief, Field Marshall Asim Munir, a charge the government rejects. It says the meetings stopped because Khan broke jail rules prohibiting discussion of politics.

While Khan may be silenced, he's far from the only one under pressure.

Journalists, analysts and human rights advocates say the space to disagree with the state is increasingly limited – and the risks greater.

Last weekend, human rights lawyer Imaan Mazari and her husband were convicted of sharing anti-state social media posts.

The couple will spend 10 years in jail.

Ahead of sentencing, Amnesty International had called on Pakistan to end "coercive tactics used to silence dissent and intimidate those who defend human rights".

Khan's family are very clear about the effort to wipe him from the public's mind.

"There are two names you can't have on television. You can't say anything nice about Imran Khan, and you can't say anything bad about Asim Munir," his sister Aleema Khanum told the BBC. She was speaking at a recent protest by supporters a few kilometres from his cell in Rawalpindi's Adiala jail.

It's been more than eight weeks since Khan saw a family member, more than five since he met a lawyer and then it was only for eight minutes, his party says.

This is the only way we have right now to create enough pressure that we are allowed to meet him," Khanum said at the protest. "It's his right to meet his lawyers, it's his right to meet his family, it's his communication with the outside world.

That communication from Khan has often been highly critical of Pakistan's government and military chief. After meetings inside the jail, Khan's words have often been posted on his X account, attributed to him and giving directions to his party and supporters.

"They are unable to block his voice because people want to hear him, they read his messages, they are not giving up on him," Khanum says.

But for now, with meetings stopped, so have those messages.

Khan, imprisoned since August 2023, is convicted in several corruption cases which he says are politically motivated.

The government and military reject claims he is being held in isolation. Talal Chaudhry, an interior minister, has called him "the most privileged prisoner in Pakistan", with gym equipment and a cook.

After a post appeared quoting Khan on his X account, calling Munir a "mentally unstable person", the military spokesperson held a two-hour news conference broadcast across Pakistan's media, saying Khan had gone beyond politics and labelled him a national security threat.

"One could argue that the military is really leading the country on so many levels now that Pakistan's coming quite close to authoritarian rule," says Michael Kugelman, senior fellow on South Asia at the Atlantic Council.

This is the worst the repression has been during any period of civilian rule.

Pakistan's military, often referred to as "the establishment", have been an ever-present factor in the country politics, including periods of military dictatorship.

Initially, Khan and the military appeared close; many believe their backing helped bring Khan to power and the opposition at the time initially accused him of being in thrall to the military while he governed. Khan's party denied this.

By the time he was ousted in a vote of no confidence in 2022, Khan had not only fallen out with the military leadership, but blamed them for his removal from power.

In November 2025, a constitutional amendment granted Munir lifetime immunity from prosecution and oversight of all Pakistan's defence forces.

Many saw it as a further sign that the military's influence over Pakistan was at a high-water mark under a civilian government.

The current government deny the military are calling the shots.

"The civilian government is [taking] decisions. We are all working hand in glove," Chaudhry says, adding the chief of defence forces "is doing a marvellous job".

Security sources said: "The military has always maintained it operates within legal bounds."

But Michael Kugelman and others see a connection between the military's involvement in politics and the amount of space to speak out.

"It's intrinsically linked to how strong or weak a democratic government is and what their relationship is with the military," says Munizae Jahangir, a journalist and co-chair for the Human Rights Council of Pakistan (HRCP).

If the military is more dominant, there will be less space for protest, there will be less space for dissent, there will be less space for free expression.

Of those already jailed, Mazari is among the most prominent. A lawyer who has worked on some of the most sensitive cases in Pakistan, she and her husband Hadi Ali Chattha were convicted of "disseminating and propagating narratives that align with hostile terrorist groups".

The government have defended their sentencing; in response Pakistan's information minister posted on X: "As you sow, so you shall reap!"

"Attempts to frame law-breaking as democracy or human rights are entirely misplaced," Chaudhry said.

Other human rights advocates told the BBC they have faced limits on how they can operate.

HRCP say that their staff have been harassed on phone calls and stopped from holding round-table discussions at hotels unless they obtain permission in advance. The government says this is "to ensure security".

Journalists, too, say they have felt pressure. In 2023, the BBC reported that TV channels had been told that they must not show Khan's face, his voice or say his name. The topics that should not be covered, according to journalists the BBC spoke to, have expanded.

"They [Pakistan's authorities] have controlled the mainstream media to a large extent," said Azaz Syed, a reporter for Geo TV. He says that even stories tangentially linked to the military – including one he recently did on a defence housing authority – have led to phone calls from unknown numbers with warnings to go no further.

Jahangir says she has even been told by editors not to cover certain stories.

"The editors are not doing this for fun. They do fundamentally believe in freedom of expression. They are doing this in order to survive," she says.

Journalists from other outlets who spoke to the BBC on condition of anonymity said that a culture of self-censorship was now common in newsrooms.

There were times in the past when there was complete censorship," one said. "Now there is self-censorship, which in many ways is worse because we are deceiving the audience.

The BBC approached the military for comment.

Security sources told us that ISPR, the military's communications arm, "does not regulate media content, freedom of speech, or interfere in civilian journalism, nor does it exercise any authority over public discourse beyond its lawful communication role".

Dawn newspaper - the oldest in Pakistan, founded in 1941 by the country's founding father, Muhammad Ali Jinnah - has taken a financial hit for its reporting. In December, Dawn Media Group said it had been subject to an unannounced ban on government adverts, firstly on its newspaper, then on its TV and radio outlets, a move the Council of Newspaper Editors said was "financially crippling the organisation".

"While some within the state may think that punishing outlets that refuse to toe the line may snuff out critical voices, in the modern age this is next to impossible," the editorial board said.

Information minister Atta Tarar denied that Dawn was denied government advertisement.

Several journalists said that the changes to Pakistan's Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act in early 2025 have made the environment more difficult.

Pakistan's authorities introduced the changes, saying they were needed to fight what the military has often termed "digital terrorism"; spreading what they see to be "anarchy and false information" to undermine the state. The country's constitution protects the right to freedom of speech and expression subject to reasonable restrictions, security sources told the BBC.

It's false to claim Pakistan suppresses free speech," says Chaudhry. He cites the dangers of social media being used for financial fraud and recruiting terrorists. "We want to regulate social media, the whole world is regulating [it].

But others say they can be used to limit journalists' ability to report.

"Changes made to the law have now made it an explicit crime to criticise the security establishment, the judiciary and definitions around national interest have been made even more vague. There are astonishingly steep fines and the penalties have been enhanced disproportionately," says Adnan Rehmat, a media analyst based in Islamabad.

He says there are the official rules, then there are further unspoken rules: "It's really difficult to know what the boundaries are, they are forever shifting."

Limitations on journalists are not new in Pakistan. Under Khan's government, journalists protested about restrictions placed on what they could publish and broadcast.

Syed sees the current situation as a continuation of the operation against the media. Jahangir also sees some level of historical continuity. "I can't say this has been the worst time, but let's say that times haven't improved for us."

While attempts to limit and intimidate critics have happened before, some think there is a new approach this time.

It feels like something has shifted," says Azeema Cheema, an Islamabad-based research director specialising in conflict, fragility and violence. "Because now you are using the courts. You are using institutions, not extra institutional measures.

Those operating online outside Pakistan are in the authorities' sights too. In early January, seven Pakistani journalists and Youtubers, including two former army officers, were tried in absentia and given life sentences for digital terrorism. The prosecution accused them of "waging war against state" and "incitement" in relation to protests that took place on 9 May 2023 after Khan's first arrest.

In a post on X, one of the sentenced, Adil Raja, said "speaking truth to power is now called Digital Terrorism in Pakistan".

Syed and Cheema cite this case as a particularly stark example of harsh sentencing.

"There's been a growing realisation that the state is excessively willing and unapologetically willing to wield a blunt hammer," says Cheema.

Where that hammer may fall next is what many we spoke to are trying to calculate.

Additional reporting by Usman Zahid

Source: BBC
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