Columbia International Freedom of Expression seeks to contribute to the event of an built-in and progressive jurisprudence and understanding on freedom of expression and knowledge world wide. It maintains an in depth database of worldwide case regulation. That is its publication coping with latest developments within the area.
“Arshad Sharif was threatened in Pakistan, charged in 16 fabricated circumstances, and his present was taken off the air,” journalist and activist Javeria Siddique advised CGFoE about her late husband, a distinguished Pakistani journalist, fatally shot whereas in exile in Kenya in October 2022. “Why are these answerable for hatching his homicide nonetheless free?”
This Tuesday, February 3, Pakistan’s Federal Constitutional Court docket disposed of the case regarding Sharif’s homicide—and not using a thorough investigation. The Court docket held that, in mild of the Kenya-Pakistan law-enforcement cooperation on the matter, there was “no want for any judicial interference.” “I’m in excessive grief and disenchanted,” Javeria Siddique advised CGFoE.
For the previous 4 years, Siddique has been pursuing justice for the demise of Sharif relentlessly: by means of authorized motion—in two courts, in two nations—and public advocacy. In 2024, the Excessive Court docket of Kenya discovered the journalist’s killing illegal and condemned the authorities’ failure to conduct a well timed and unbiased investigation.
On this week’s Jurisprudence in Focus, CGFoE Senior Communications Supervisor Marija Šajkaš asks Javeria Siddique about her tenacious cross-border battle for justice and the backlash—focused harassment, each on-line and in actual life—she has confronted for talking out. Beneath is an abridged excerpt. Discover the complete model on our web site.
Journalist Javeria Siddique and her late husband Arshad Sharif, a distinguished Pakistani journalist, fatally shot whereas in exile in Kenya. Siddique has been combating for justice in his case within the courts of Pakistan and Kenya. Photograph: courtesy of Javeria Siddique
Marija Šajkaš: In searching for accountability for Arshad Sharif’s killing, you might have needed to interact with two very completely different authorized methods. What have been essentially the most important variations in how the circumstances have been dealt with? How did these variations form your pursuit of justice?
Javeria Siddique: In Pakistan, I’ve confronted important restrictions, like not being allowed to take my telephone contained in the Supreme Court docket, present process physique and bag searches, and having my id card taken away, which made me anxious. I’ve been handled extra like a suspect than a sufferer and denied permission to talk a number of occasions, regardless of being the sufferer’s partner. The courtroom at all times gave extra time to the federal government. As well as, I at all times felt that the state legal professionals have been representing the Kenyan authorities, versus their very own citizen, Arshad Sharif, who was killed on international soil.
In distinction, in Kenya, the decide allowed me to talk, and I cried, feeling heard for the primary time in years. I’ve attended conferences on-line, and the decide has listened to me through the one-year listening to. The Kenyan Excessive Court docket dominated the killing was focused homicide, not as a result of mistaken id, and the case is now in entrance of the Supreme Court docket. This distinction in remedy has formed my pursuit of justice—I’ve felt extra supported in Kenya, whereas in Pakistan it’s been a battle to take care of dignity and a voice.
Learn the complete interview right here.
MexicoKaiser v. RamírezDecision Date: August 7, 2025The Sixteenth Collegiate Tribunal for Administrative Issues of the First Circuit of Mexico Metropolis held that remarks made about journalist and political commentator Max Kaiser Aranda through the federal authorities’s morning press conferences infringed his elementary rights to honor, privateness, and intimacy. The case arose from statements made in President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s day by day morning briefings and disseminated by means of the administration’s official YouTube channel and different social media platforms. The Tribunal famous that the movies contained disparaging characterizations and public accusations directed at Kaiser in retaliation for his important commentary on federal coverage. Kaiser filed an amparo petition asserting that the officers’ conduct and omissions each violated his constitutional rights and generated a chilling impact on his speech. Recasting the dispute as a battle between the State’s obligation to tell and a person’s rights to dignity and personal life, the Tribunal utilized the requirements articulated by the Supreme Court docket of Justice of the Nation, which require that official communications be of public relevance, truthful, and objectively neutral. Discovering these situations unmet, the Tribunal granted reduction, ordered the elimination of the movies from official platforms, and instructed public officers to chorus from making comparable references in future broadcasts.
ColombiaANDI v. PetroDecision Date: July 11, 2025The Council of State of Colombia held that President Gustavo Petro’s public statements on the social media platform X (previously Twitter), during which he accused the Nationwide Enterprise Affiliation of Colombia (ANDI) of defending “ethnic hatred” and “slavery,” didn’t violate the affiliation’s constitutional rights to honor and fame. The ANDI filed a tutela (an utility for the safety of constitutional rights) in response to those statements—which the President additionally directed to particular members of the Antioquia Enterprise Group and the administrators of El Colombiano (a Colombian newspaper). The Council reviewed solely the expressions directed particularly on the ANDI. It concluded that the phrases “ethnic hatred” and “slavery” have been hyperbolic expressions utilized in a polarized political debate to explain the ANDI’s opposition to the federal government. In keeping with the Tribunal, they weren’t factual allegations or legal accusations. Though the Council acknowledged the affect and weight of presidential speech, it discovered no proof that the feedback brought on precise hurt to the ANDI’s honor or fame. Accordingly, the Council of State denied the tutela.
Costa RicaUreña v. ChavesDecision Date: Might 23, 2023The Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court docket of Justice of Costa Rica held that language utilized by President Rodrigo Chaves Robles, after which Minister of Well being Joselyn Chacón Madrigal, through the January 9, 2023, press convention violated journalist Jason Ureña’s freedom of expression. Through the press convention, the officers referred not directly to Ureña and different journalists utilizing derogatory phrases, portraying him as a member “of a band of criminals and political hitmen,” amongst others. Ureña filed an amparo motion, arguing that this stigmatizing language—delivered on an official platform in response to reporting that scrutinized the Minister’s efficiency in workplace—constituted an oblique restriction on press freedom by making a chilling impact. Whereas the Court docket acknowledged that public officers might reply, even vehemently, to criticism—and concluded that a big portion of the challenged remarks didn’t quantity to direct or oblique censorship—, it discovered that sure offensive labels exceeded the bounds of democratic debate, discredited journalistic work, and constituted a reproachable use of official speech that injured freedom of the press and adversely affected entry to public info. Accordingly, the Court docket partially granted the amparo because it didn’t award financial compensation at this occasion. Nonetheless, it expressly preserved Ureña’s proper to pursue claims for damages by means of atypical judicial proceedings.
CGFoE thanks Maria Antonia Cohen, Venture Coordinator for the UNESCO Chair on Freedom of Expression at Universidad de Los Andes, for her indispensable contribution to the case analyses.
● Pakistan: Human Rights Attorneys Imaan Mazari and Hadi Ali Chattha Imprisoned. Amnesty Worldwide calls for the discharge of distinguished Pakistani human rights legal professionals Imaan Mazari and Hadi Ali Chattha, who acquired ten-year jail sentences on January 24. The fees towards them are “cyber terrorism” and “false info” underneath the Prevention of Digital Crimes Act, based mostly on their social media posts in assist of Baloch and Pashtun activists and in disapproval of the Pakistan army. Amnesty underscores a number of violations of the legal professionals’ rights through the trial, together with the constant denial of “the best to cross-examine witnesses and produce proof towards them.” On February 4, UN consultants condemned the legal professionals’ conviction, stressing violations of worldwide requirements.
● Pakistan: Blatant Authorized Persecution of Journalist Sohrab Barkat. In one other case involving baseless accusations underneath the Prevention of Digital Crimes Act, journalist Sohrab Barkat has been behind bars since his arrest in November 2025. Demanding his launch, Reporters With out Borders (RSF) states that the a number of expenses Barkat is dealing with—“hate speech”, “defamation,” “cyberharassment,” “cyberterrorism”, “false info”—are linked to his criticism of the authorities, in addition to his protection of protests in Kashmir and human rights activist Mahrang Baloch’s nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize. Barkat’s most up-to-date bail listening to has been repeatedly postponed, “arbitrarily extending his deprivation of liberty,” notes RSF. Extra on journalists in Pakistan at this time: IFEX cites recurring assaults on reporters throughout political rallies.
● Pakistan: Transnational Repression Escalates. The Committee to Shield Journalists traces Pakistan’s surging use of in absentia convictions and arrest warrants towards journalists residing overseas. This January alone, 4 Pakistani journalists and commentators based mostly abroad—Sabir Shakir, Shaheen Sehbai, Wajahat Saeed Khan, and Moeed Pirzada—have been convicted and given life sentences for allegedly “inciting violence through the 2023 protests and spreading hatred towards state establishments.” In one other case, ARTICLE 19 urges the UK to urgently guarantee the security of Roshaan Khattak, Pakistani filmmaker, human rights activist, and researcher on the College of Cambridge, who has been receiving direct threats. Shahzad Akbar, one other Pakistani dissident, was lately bodily attacked in Cambridge.
This Week in Protests
Iran: December 28—ongoing
Underneath the duvet of an web blackout, the Iranian regime carried out the deadliest crackdown on protests within the historical past of the Islamic Republic. Stories of the bloodshed level to fatalities probably as excessive as 30,000. Regardless of being pressured into silence, many Iranians have proven defiance and turned funerals of protesters right into a type of dissent.
Calls for: Having begun with bazaaries protesting because the nationwide foreign money collapsed, the discontent unfold to all of Iran’s 31 provinces and grew to voice longstanding frustrations with corruption, poor governance, and repression.
State response: In what appeared as an indication for safety forces to suppress the protests, Iran’s Supreme Chief Ayatollah Ali Khamenei stated, “Rioters have to be put of their place,” on January 3. The imposition of a nationwide web shutdown on January 8 preceded the escalation: the safety forces used deadly power, together with close-range gunshots, killing hundreds. Even the state TV acknowledged the mass deaths, broadcasting morgue scenes; nonetheless, the regime got down to obscure the true scale of violence, extorting giant sums of cash out of the grieving households and ordering “subdued” burials. Mass arrests have totaled not less than 50,842 as of February 4. Web disruptions are nonetheless in place.
Toll: “Everybody appeared to know somebody who had been shot at or injured or killed,” Salar Abdoh wrote in regards to the aftermath of January 8-9 for Equator. Human Rights Activists Information Company has confirmed 6,883 deaths, whereas 11,280 stay underneath evaluation.
Resistance: Some Iranians have carried their protest—or a type of it—to the funerals of these killed: there have been reviews of festive music and dancing throughout burials, in celebration of the protesters and in defiance of the ruling Islamic regime.
Gross Human Rights Violations: The web shutdown obscures the proof of doubtless crimes towards humanity; nonetheless, the UN Truth-Discovering Mission has gathered witness and sufferer accounts of “pointless and disproportionate use of power, leading to arbitrary killings and extreme accidents, torture, sexual and gender-based violence, arbitrary arrest and detention, and compelled confessions.”
● Name for Purposes: 2026 Sakharov Fellowship. As much as 14 human rights defenders from non-EU nations shall be chosen for intensive coaching on June 7-20, 2026. Apply by February 15 right here.
● Name for Purposes: re:structure Fellowships 2026/27. 15 fellowships associated to democracy and the rule of regulation in Europe shall be awarded to early-/mid-career students and practitioners. Apply by March 5 right here.
This text is reproduced with the permission of International Freedom of Expression. For an archive of earlier newsletters, see right here.
