ISLAMABAD: The Islamabad High Court (IHC) ordered Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) not to arrest a prominent anchorperson who the agency has accused of spreading fake news and hate content on social media against the military, his colleagues said Wednesday.
Sami Ibrahim is currently in the United States on a personal visit and will return home this week, according to his lawyer Raja Amir Abbas.
Ibrahim’s colleagues say the court ordered the agency on Tuesday to allow him to remain free at least until he attends a court hearing before May 16.
The latest development comes amid a growing campaign against the military on social media platforms after former prime minister Imran Khan was ousted from power last month through a no-confidence vote in the parliament.
Khan claims that he was removed from power by a US plot executed by his political opponents. Washington has denied the charge, and the new government has urged people not to spread what they call “fake news” against national institutions, including the military and the judiciary.
In a statement a day before, the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) also asked the authorities to “drop their inquiry into journalist Sami Ibrahim.”
In a separate statement, it also asked Pakistan to conduct a “swift and impartial investigation into the police assault of journalist Jahangir Hayat” who was briefly detained this month by police along with his wife and daughter in Lahore.
Pakistan has long been an unsafe country for journalists. In 2020, it ranked ninth on the CPJ’s annual Global Impunity Index, which assesses countries where journalists are regularly killed and the assailants go free.
