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Category: Asad Toor Uncensored

  • Pakistan court remands journalist Asad Ali Toor in cybercrime case

    New York, March 15, 2024—Pakistan authorities must immediately and unconditionally release independent journalist Asad Ali Toor, return his devices, and cease harassing him in retaliation for his journalistic work, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Friday.

    On March 8, a court in Pakistan’s capital, Islamabad, ordered Toor be sent to jail on a 14-day judicial remand pending investigation, following 11 days of detention in the custody of Pakistan’s Federal Investigation Agency (FIA), according to news reports.

    Three days earlier, FIA officials raided Toor’s Islamabad home, seizing his mobile phone and a portable internet device, the journalist’s lawyer, Imaan Mazari-Hazir, told CPJ.

    Toor was arrested on February 26, after appearing for questioning earlier that day in relation to an alleged anti-judiciary campaign at the FIA’s cybercrime wing. Three days earlier, Toor was questioned for about eight hours without having access to his legal team.

    However, the FIA first information report (FIR) opening an investigation into Toor accuses the journalist of “anti-state” rather than anti-judiciary commentary, saying he created a “malicious/obnoxious and explicit campaign” against “civil servants/ government officials and state institutions” through his political affairs YouTube channel Asad Toor Uncensored and account on X, formerly known as Twitter, in violation of the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act, 2016 (PECA).

    On Thursday, a special FIA court adjourned Toor’s bail hearing until Monday, March 18, after the agency’s special prosecutor and the investigating officer did not attend the hearing.

    “The ongoing detention and investigation of journalist Asad Ali Toor, as well as authorities’ seizure of his devices and pressure to disclose his sources, constitute an egregious violation of press freedom in Pakistan,” said CPJ Asia Program Coordinator Beh Lih Yi. “Authorities must cease using the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act and other draconian laws to persecute journalists and silence critical reporting and commentary.”

    Toor is accused of violating three sections of the PECA pertaining to glorification of an offense, cyberterrorism, and cyberstalking, according to the FIR. CPJ has repeatedly documented the use of the law to detain and harass journalists for their work.

    A Supreme Court order on Monday stated that the FIR against Toor was “lacking in material particulars,” meaning it failed to establish how the journalist committed the alleged offenses, Mazari-Hazir said.

    Toor went on a hunger strike from February 28 to March 3 to protest his detention, Mazari-Hazir told CPJ.

    On Wednesday, Mazari-Hazir and another lawyer representing Toor received a court order granting permission to meet their client in eastern Punjab province’s Adiala jail. However, jail authorities denied them access later that day following a controversial two-week ban on all public visits due to alleged “security” threats in the complex, where former Prime Minister Imran Khan is also held.

    Toor informed his lawyers that while in FIA custody, he was held with around 20 to 30 people in a small cell where it was difficult to sit, Mazari-Hazir said, adding that authorities interrogated the journalist multiple times overnight, depriving him of sleep, and pressured him to disclose his sources, which he refused to do. In a remand application filed in court on March 3, the FIA stated that Toor was “non-cooperative to disclose his sources of information.”

    Pakistan’s Protection of Journalists and Media Professionals Act, 2021 protects journalists’ right to privacy and the non-disclosure of their sources.

    Prior to his arrest, Toor had reported critically on the chief justice of Pakistan and the country’s military establishment.

    CPJ called and texted Pakistan information minister Attaullah Tarrar for comment on the case but did not receive a response.


    This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Committee to Protect Journalists.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Pakistani journalist Asad Ali Toor arrested after responding to summons for questioning

    New York, February 26, 2024—Pakistan’s Federal Investigation Agency arrested independent journalist Asad Ali Toor on Monday after he was ordered to appear for questioning in connection to an alleged “explicit and malicious” campaign against Supreme Court judges, according to news reports and the journalist’s lawyer, Imaan Mazari-Hazir, who spoke to CPJ. Toor operates Asad Toor Uncensored, a YouTube channel where he covers political affairs with over 160,000 subscribers.

    The Committee to Protect Journalists called on authorities to immediately and unconditionally release Toor, and to cease harassing him for his journalistic work. Toor was arrested in the capital, Islamabad, at the FIA’s cybercrime wing.

    The FIA refused to allow Mazari-Hazir or Toor’s two other lawyers to accompany the journalist for questioning, Mazari-Hazir said, adding that the agency subsequently locked its entrance door and turned off the lights of the building. Then, an FIA official emerged from the building and informed the lawyers of the journalist’s arrest.

    An FIA guard provided Toor’s lawyers with a handwritten note from the journalist, reviewed by CPJ, asking for his 78-year-old mother to be taken to a relative’s home.

    As of Tuesday morning, Toor’s lawyers had not received a copy of a first information report opening an investigation into the journalist, according to Mazari-Hazir.

    On Friday, authorities detained and questioned Toor without access to legal representation at the FIA cybercrime wing headquarters, according to news reports, Mazari-Hazir, and the journalist, who spoke to CPJ before his arrest. Toor was released around eight hours later and received a notice shortly thereafter to appear for questioning on Monday.

    Toor filed a petition, reviewed by CPJ, on Monday asking the Islamabad High Court to declare the FIA notices in relation to both summons for questioning as unlawful, order the agency to provide a list of allegations against the journalist, and not to harass or unlawfully detain him.

    The Chief Justice’s order in response on Monday, reviewed by CPJ, stated that Toor should join the inquiry proceedings but “shall not be harassed.”

    “We are appalled by the arrest of Pakistani journalist Asad Ali Toor in apparent violation of an order by the Islamabad High Court,” said CPJ Program Director Carlos Martinez de la Serna. “Pakistani authorities must immediately and unconditionally release Toor and ensure that journalists do not face retaliation for their critical reporting on institutions, including the judiciary.”

    Mazari-Hazir told CPJ that Toor’s legal team will file a petition on Tuesday morning challenging his arrest at the Islamabad High Court.

    Toor and Mazari-Hazir said the journalist found out about the summons for the February 23 interrogation the day before through social media because the notice was sent to a prior address.

    Six plainclothes men were present during the February 23 questioning, but Toor was not sure what agency they were from, he told CPJ, adding that the men refused to identify themselves when Toor requested.

    The men did not provide a list of allegations or a copy of any complaint against the journalist when asked, Toor told CPJ, adding that the men questioned him about why he criticized the chief justice of the Supreme Court, where he received information for his reporting, and information about his journalistic sources. They also threatened Toor with raiding his home, detaining him, and confiscating his devices, the journalist told CPJ.

    In January, the FIA cybercrime wing summoned dozens of journalists, including Toor, in relation to the alleged campaign against Supreme Court judges following an order upholding an electoral commission decision barring the party of former Prime Minister Imran Khan from using its cricket bat symbol to identify candidates for the February 8 election.

    Toor has recently reported critically on the chief justice of Pakistan and the country’s military establishment on YouTube and X, formerly known as Twitter.

    In May 2021, three unidentified men—one of whom Toor said identified himself as an agent with Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency—beat, bound, and gagged the journalist inside his Islamabad apartment. Toor recalled the incident in a BBC documentary released on February 16, 2024.

    CPJ called and messaged Pakistan Information Minister Murtaza Solangi for comment but did not immediately receive a response.


    This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Committee to Protect Journalists.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Pakistani journalist Asad Ali Toor targeted in criminal investigation of protest

    On March 3, 2022, police in Pakistan’s capital, Islamabad, opened an investigation into Asad Ali Toor for allegedly leading an unauthorized protest earlier that week, according to news reports and Toor, who spoke to CPJ in a phone interview.

    On March 4, the Islamabad High Court ordered police not to arrest anyone named in the case until another hearing on Monday, March 7; at that hearing, Chief Justice Athar Minallah said that police officers’ use of excessive force and the registration of a criminal case against the protesters constituted an abuse of state power, according to news reports.

    Toor, who was present at the March 7 hearing, said that Attorney General Khalid Jawed Khan told the court that the state would withdraw the case. Toor told CPJ on March 9 that he had not been formally notified that the case had been withdrawn.

    Khan and Shabbir Ahmad, the station house officer of Islamabad’s Kohsar police station who filed the complaint, did not respond to CPJ’s requests for comment sent via messaging app.

    Toor told CPJ that he denied any leadership role in the protest, held on March 1 at the city’s National Press Club to protest the disappearance of an ethnic Baloch student, and only attended to cover it as a journalist.

    A number of students were injured when police charged the protesters and attacked them with batons, according to Dawn. Toor alleged that the investigation was retaliation for his coverage of the protest and the police crackdown on his YouTube-based current affairs channel, Asad Toor Uncensored.

    In a first information report, a police document opening an investigation, authorities accused Toor and several others of criminal conspiracy, rioting, unlawful assembly, obstruction of a public servant’s duties, defamation, and intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of peace. The most serious of those crimes, criminal conspiracy, can carry a death sentence, according to Pakistan’s penal code.

    Previously, in September 2020, the cybercrime wing of the Federal Investigation Agency in the northern city of Rawalpindi filed a first information report against Toor for allegedly defaming the army through his social media posts, according to news reports.

    After four months of legal proceedings, the Lahore High Court dismissed the case for lack of evidence, according to news reports and Toor. He said that the state never informed him or his lawyers about who filed the complaint that led to the registration of a first information report, or which social media posts were allegedly defamatory.

    Separately, in May 2021, unidentified armed men attacked Toor at his home and left him bound and gagged, as CPJ documented at the time. Toor told CPJ that police have not identified the perpetrators of that attack.

    CPJ emailed the Federal Investigation Agency and Islamabad Police Inspector-General Muhammad Ahsan Younas for comment, but did not immediately receive any replies.


    This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Erik Crouch.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.