Pakistan has a history of a long-drawn struggle for press freedom, during which hundreds of journalists were jailed by successive regimes, even flogged on military court’s orders in the 1970s, and numerous publications were banned. But since the late 1980s, the press in Pakistan has enjoyed a high level of freedom. With the advent of private television channels in 2002, the notion of media freedom has taken a more concrete form. In fact, one of the reasons for the increased number of violent attacks on journalists is linked to the high level of freedom the Pakistani media enjoys at the moment. Of course, there are serious problems, and we believe the culture of impunity for crimes against journalists that exists in the country is an attempt to force the media into self-censorship. As most perpetrators of such crimes remain unpunished, this problem may become even more compounded in the coming days.