Journalist charged, accused of posting illegal material on Facebook

Zafar Achakzai, a journalist in Pakistan has been arrested after being charged with allegedly posting illegal material on social media platform, Facebook.

Reports say Zafar was arrested on June 25 at his home in the southwestern city of Quetta by armed men, some in paramilitary uniform and others in plainclothes, who broke down the door to his home to make his arrest.

According to Naimat Achakzai, father of the accused who owns the Daily Qudrat newspaper, an Urdu language daily with a small print run but a huge following online, with more than seven million followers on Facebook across Pakistan, his son is not guilty of the charge against him.

Read also: PARIS: Man arrested for attempting to ram his car into crowd outside mosque

He said he believed that his 21-year-old son who is the newspaper’s chief reporter was arrested for criticising security forces regarding their handling of a hit-and-run case.

“They broke the door down, they assaulted our family members … They took him from us during this raid,” said Naimat, of the raid.
“I was asking where they had come from, but they were not telling us. Whoever spoke to them, they would slap them.”

The detention of the journalist, ordered by Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, according to an interior ministry statement on May 14, is the latest in a series of arrests targeting journalists and social media activists for criticising the country’s powerful military, which has ruled Pakistan for roughly half of its 69 years since independence.

 

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