In Balochistan, abductions, legal notices, and aggressive use of the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act are silencing journalists. Officials insist that the cases are private. On the other hand, rights groups warn of elite protection and shrinking space for the media.

In Quetta, the capital of Pakistan’s restive southwestern province of Balochistan, the pressure on independent voices has become routine. Temporary detentions lasting hours, police notices demanding sources, First Information Reports under the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act (PECA), and the quiet threat of longer custody under the Maintenance of Public Order ordinance now form part of the working environment for many journalists and digital activists. 

Rights advocates and journalist unions say these tools are being deployed not only against outright dissidents but against those who report on corruption, governance failures, and the daily realities of a province long marked by conflict and underdevelopment.

Provincial officials maintain that PECA cases are filed by private individuals or officers acting in personal capacity. In February 2026, Shahid Rind, aide to Chief Minister Sarfraz Bugti on media and politics, told a seminar that two PECA cases against journalists existed in the province and that the government was not the complainant in either. The cases involved Dawn investigative reporter Akbar Notezai and Farhan Malik of the digital platform Raftar. Days later, Rind shared a letter, later reposted by the chief minister’s office, requesting the Federal Investigation Agency to act against local editor Agha Obaid under PECA for alleged corruption coverage. Rind wrote that the government supported press freedom but would act against “character assassination of politicians and government officers under the guise of journalism.”

Personal Cost of Scrutiny

For Agha Obaid, the sequence was swift. Personal details were shared publicly by official accounts; an FIR followed the next day, not over a specific report but for alleged blackmail and threats against a government officer. He obtained pre-arrest bail and later said he had been threatened with a month-long detention under the Maintenance of Public Order ordinance. “My biggest crime is that I regularly highlight the corruption in government departments,” he said. The Balochistan Union of Journalists condemned the FIR and demanded a transparent investigation.

Notezai faced a National Cyber Crime Investigation Agency notice over a two-year-old Dawn investigation into the Buleda road in Kech district. When contacted, he advised staying clear of the matter and declined further comment. Osama Altaf, named in the FIR against Malik’s team, pointed out that a sitting minister had registered the case. “Rind should be asked that if the provincial government is not endorsing this case, does this mean that the most powerful person in Balochistan is not a minister, or the chief minister – it is actually someone else?” The case remains before the Balochistan High Court.

Abductions and Repeated Cases

The pattern extends beyond formal FIRs. During Ramzan 2026, podcaster Maqbool Ahmad Jaffar was abducted by unknown persons for several hours and released without charges. He alleged the involvement of a senior bureaucrat, Imran Zarkoon, then principal secretary in the chief minister’s house, after Jaffar questioned recruitment processes and the official’s subsequent use of government resources. Jaffar said law-enforcement agencies including the Counter Terrorism Department and Serious Crimes Investigation Wing were drawn in, treating him and his brother as security threats rather than cybercrime suspects. 

Zarkoon did not respond to the allegations.

On 9 May, Jaffar was detained again and produced in court by the NCCIA under PECA sections 20 and 26-A on a complaint by a provincial communications secretary. He received two days’ judicial remand. As bail appeared possible, two fresh PECA cases were added – one at the request of the provincial food minister and another linked to Zarkoon. Rind later stated that the provincial government had nothing to do with the arrests of two social-media activists, describing the complaints as personal.

Notices have also proliferated. Habibullah, a journalist from Chaman living in Quetta, received a March 2026 notice from the Serious Crimes Investigation Wing demanding he report within two days and explain the source and aim of a Facebook post. Under pressure he deleted the report. The Balochistan Union of Journalists protested that an agency may challenge a story’s accuracy but cannot compel disclosure of sources.

A National Law with Local Impact

PECA, enacted in 2016 and amended in 2022 and again in 2025, was presented as a tool against cybercrime. Critics, including the Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists, Balochistan Union of Journalists, Reporters Without Borders, and a coalition of international rights groups, argue its vague provisions on “false information,” defamation, and online speech have been weaponised against journalists and human-rights defenders. The NCCIA, established in 2024 to replace the FIA’s cybercrime wing, has become the primary instrument for such cases.

Nationally, Freedom Network recorded 129 verified violations against journalists between April 2025 and March 2026, with legal cases – many under PECA – forming a large share. High-profile examples include the arrest of Islamabad journalist Fakhar ur Rehman over a tweet and the 17-year sentences handed to lawyers Imaan Mazari and Hadi Ali Chattha under PECA-related proceedings. In Balochistan the absolute number of PECA cases remains lower than in other provinces, yet the chilling effect is acute in a region already scarred by decades of targeted killings of journalists – roughly 40 over two decades, most unresolved.

Lawyer and activist Jalila Haider, now pursuing a PhD in the United States, faced a 2025 PECA case for alleged support of Baloch rights campaigner Mahrang Baloch. She described the NCCIA as oriented toward silencing critics rather than addressing genuine cybercrime and noted that the inclusion of defamation clauses inside PECA allows powerful actors to bypass ordinary civil remedies. She also criticised journalist bodies for insufficient solidarity with cases involving digital activists.

Resistance and the Road Ahead

On World Press Freedom Day in May 2026, journalists gathered outside the Quetta Press Club to reject PECA as a “black law.” Similar conventions and awareness campaigns by the Balochistan Union of Journalists and Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists have called for stakeholder consultations and parliamentary reform. An Amnesty International-led coalition of 13 civil-society organisations issued an open letter early this month, urging Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s government to stop using PECA and related measures to criminalise dissent.

In Balochistan the pressures are layered: state agencies, political and tribal elites, and non-state armed groups – all exert influence. Economic dependence on government advertising further narrows editorial independence. Self-censorship has become a survival strategy. Yet the persistence of local digital platforms, investigative reporting, and organised union responses shows that the space for scrutiny has not been completely extinguished. Whether PECA is substantially amended or continues to function as a flexible instrument of control will help determine whether that remaining space expands or contracts further.