Foreign media journalists will now need prior government permission to gather news outside Pakistan’s capital Islamabad and the cities of Lahore and Karachi. At the same time, all international media journalists working in the country — even freelancers — must compulsorily register with the government.
Pakistan’s information ministry sent the new directive to a messaging group of international media representatives last Monday, according to a report by the news agency AFP on Thursday (6 August).
Pakistan’s human rights and media organisations have expressed concern about the new directive, fearing it will further narrow press freedom in the country and make it harder to gather news independently on important events.
The information ministry’s “Foreign Media Facilitation Guidelines 2026” say all international media journalists working in Pakistan must register with the government’s External Media Wing. The rule also applies to freelance journalists.
In addition, to gather news outside Islamabad, Lahore and Karachi, the foreign media outlet concerned must obtain a no-objection certificate (NOC) from the government.
The ministry’s directive did not give details about how strictly the new rules would be enforced, or what action would be taken against journalists or media that did not comply.
The new directive came after allegations that foreign journalists had been obstructed from gathering news around recent protests and local elections in Pakistan-administered Kashmir. The information ministry did not say whether the situation in Kashmir was directly linked to the new policy.
Pakistan’s local media and human rights organisations have already demanded the withdrawal of the new restrictions. In their view, in a country of about 250 million people, many important events involving security, the environment, human rights and other public interests take place outside the capital and big cities, and limiting journalists’ scope to work freely there could keep many of them hidden.
The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) said in a statement that, instead of easing journalists’ work, the “Foreign Media Facilitation Guidelines 2026” would give more institutional form to bureaucratic control over news-gathering, creating new obstacles to the independent publication of matters of public interest.
The AFP report said foreign journalists in Pakistan currently need an NOC to gather news outside the big cities, but obtaining it can take up to several weeks, making it hard to cover emergencies or fast-changing events in time.
Pakistan’s information minister and the ministry’s External Media Wing were contacted for comment on the new directive but did not respond immediately.
বাংলায় মূল প্রতিবেদন পড়ুন · Read the original Bengali report