On June 8, 2004 , freelance journalist Khawar Mehdi Rizvi went on trial in an anti-terrorism court in the southwestern city of Quetta on charges of sedition, conspiracy, and impersonation. The charges carry a maximum penalty of life imprisonment and stem from his work as a fixer for two French journalists, Marc Epstein and Jean-Paul Guilloteau from the newsweekly L'Express, in December 2003, researching a story about Taliban activity along Pakistan 's border with Afghanistan . After the three returned to Karachi on December 16, 2003 , the authorities arrested the French journalists on visa violations. Rizvi was also held but the authorities officially denied holding him until January 24, 2004 when he was formally charged with fabricating video footage of Taliban activity in Pakistan . Rizvi throughout claimed innocence and said he was tortured in custody. He was released on bail on March 29, 2004 and fled the country. On April 23, 2005 , the court acquitted Rizvi of all charges against him citing insufficient evidence of guilt.

Raja Khawar Nawaz, the editor of Nawa-i-Hurriyat magazine was arrested in Muzafarabad on orders of the Azad Jammu and Kashmir Supreme Court chief justice. He had appeared before the court after being served a contempt notice for publishing “libelous and fictional material with a view to lowering the prestige and harassing the members of the superior judiciary.” Nawaz tendered an unconditional apology saying he had “printed the write-ups at the behest of and on the basis of a file provided to him by an intelligence agency personnel without personally investigating or verifying it.”

Afzal Nadeem – February 5, 2005

Afzal Nadeem, senior reporter of daily Awam , was booked under the Official Secrets Act in Karachi for reporting the contents of a letter by the National Crisis Management Cell. The letter, sent to the top bureaucrat of each of the four provinces of Pakistan , sought their intervention in stopping an ethnic party from forcible collection of donations for the Asian tsunami victims from businesses and public forums. The Act carries punishment ranging from one year imprisonment to death.

Farhat Abbas and Afaq Shah – November 10, 2004

Journalists Farhat Abbas and Afaq Shah of private radio station FM 103 were arrested by the police from their studio in Lahore for broadcasting a report on a scandal at a government-run medical center. They were detained for several days and beaten up. On November 12, a large police posse again raided the radio station and arrested staff members Ghafoor, Nauman and Arshad. They also seized equipment, forcing suspension of transmission and charged the radio with disruption of peace under the maintenance of Public Order law. Earlier, FM 103 was engaged in legal wrangling with the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority over re-broadcasts of Urdu bulletins produced by BBC .

Waseem Ahmed, Najeeb Ahmad and Azeem Rafi – November 16, 2004

Chief executive Waseem Ahmed, director Najeeb Ahmed and presenter Azeem Rafi of Islamabad-based radio station FM 99 were arrested and thrown into jail by the police in Rawalpindi as they covered a live demonstration of police baton-charge on a group of people in a market. A woman staffer of the radio as well as Najeeb's children were also thrown into prison and kept in custody overnight. The male crew of the station was manhandled by the police in jail, their mobile phone sets and cash seized.

Amir Mir – November 24, 2004

Two military intelligence officers visited the Lahore home of Amir Mir, senior assistant editor for Herald monthly and asked him to show his copy before submitting articles. Mir is known for his coverage of intelligence agencies and their role in politics. The officials also reminded Mir of how his car was set on fire by unidentified arsonists in December 2003. This was the latest instance of pressure on Mir who has a history of such visits to his home, threatening phone calls and intercepting of his mail.

Police manhandle journalists, seize equipment – April 16, 2005

About 50 editors, reporters and photojournalists accompanying Asif Zardari, the husband of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, were slapped, punched and bruised by police. This happened in a plane that brought the opposition leader from Dubai after he was whisked away by the authorities as soon as the plane landed in Lahore city, the capital of Punjab province. Equipment including cameras, recorders, tapes and mobile phones were seized and only returned after several hours. Journalists found their tapes and cameras empty of content. Similar treatment was meted out to several journalists in and outside the airport who had gathered to cover the significant political event. Ejaz Maher of BBC and Mazhar Tufail of daily Jang in particular sustained serious injuries after police commandos brutally assaulted them.