Pakistan’s federal government has introduced sweeping new regulations governing international media reporting across most of the country, triggering fierce condemnation from journalist groups and press freedom advocates who warn the rules will further erode independent coverage and create fertile ground for disinformation.
Announced on Sunday under the official title of the *Foreign Media Facilitation Guidelines, 2026*, the new requirements mandate that every individual working for international media outlets — including Pakistani citizens, freelance contributors and local fixers — must obtain a government-issued No Objection Certificate (NOC) to report from any location outside of Pakistan’s three largest cities: Islamabad, Karachi, and Lahore. The policy leaves all on-the-ground reporting outside these major urban centers completely at the discretion of federal authorities.
The move comes as Pakistan already ranks 153rd out of 180 countries in the 2025 World Press Freedom Index, reflecting long-standing challenges to open journalism in the nation of 240 million people. Critics note that while media restrictions have a long history in Pakistan, domestic outlets have traditionally faced greater pressure than their international counterparts, which many Pakistanis rely on for unfiltered reporting on sensitive issues.
“These guidelines are tantamount to choking international media in an increasingly shrinking space,” said Mustafa Nawaz Khokhar, a prominent Pakistani political commentator. “The public looks at the international media for independent reporting. Placing restrictions simply creates more room for disinformation and spread of fake news.”
The regulations do not include any clear timeline for processing NOC applications, a gap that mirrors existing approval processes for foreign journalists. Many international correspondents have previously reported waiting months for NOC approval, or receiving no response at all — a delay that effectively blocks coverage of breaking news events from outside the three permitted cities. To avoid these bottlenecks, international outlets have long relied on Pakistani contributors based in or able to travel freely to regions like Balochistan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and Pakistan-administered Kashmir; under the new rules, all of these contributors will now require official approval to work on stories.
Zaffar Abbas, veteran editor of Pakistan’s leading English-language newspaper *Dawn*, called the new rules “ridiculous restrictions and are totally unacceptable.” With more than four decades of journalistic experience in Pakistan spanning military dictatorships and authoritarian civilian governments, Abbas noted he has never encountered such sweeping limits on reporting. “To ask journalists to get an NOC for travelling outside the three major cities not just undermines freedom of movement but also freedom of the press,” he added.
In its official defense of the policy, the Pakistani government has rejected claims that the guidelines are intended to restrict reporting, framing the rules instead as a neutral “administrative mechanism” to verify media credentials, coordinate reporting requests, and facilitate access to restricted regions. Government officials further argue that any accreditation system must retain the authority to revoke credentials for journalists who engage in activity that threatens national security or public order.
The guidelines include a provision allowing authorities to revoke a journalist’s accreditation for “acts against ideology, sovereignty, security or public order of Pakistan” — a broadly worded clause that Khokhar has called “vague,” warning it opens the door to arbitrary enforcement against critical reporting.
Legal experts have also raised red flags about the policy’s legal foundation. Salhuddin Ahmed, a lawyer practicing before the Supreme Court of Pakistan, says the guidelines have no basis in statutory law. “These ‘guidelines’ are merely an executive order and lack any legal backing from statute,” Ahmed explained. “They refer to the rules of business; those rules are only meant to regulate the internal functioning of government, not create legal obligations on others. Quite clearly, these guidelines are a hastily and ill-thought-out attempt to further curb independent reporting in Pakistan.”
The government counters that the rules are a valid regulation of the Information Ministry’s External Publicity wing’s administrative relationship with foreign media, falling within the scope of existing government business rules.
Press freedom advocates, including a coalition of international journalists and the president of Pakistan’s Federal Union of Journalists, are currently working to arrange a meeting with Pakistan’s information minister to formally raise their objections to the new policy.
Observers have pointed to ongoing unrest in Pakistan-administered Kashmir (PAK) as a key trigger for the new restrictions. The region has seen two months of violent clashes between anti-government protesters and security forces that have left dozens dead, amid a local election boycott and sweeping internet shutdowns that have made independent verification of events extremely difficult.
Just one day after the new guidelines were announced, the External Publicity wing sent an urgent WhatsApp message to international media outlets ordering all journalists currently in PAK to “return back IMMEDIATELY” and apply for an NOC if they wish to report from the region. The message was sent after multiple major international outlets, including the BBC, published on-the-ground reports from the disputed territory.
Earlier this week, the Qatari news network Al Jazeera’s website became inaccessible to users within Pakistan after the Information Ministry labeled a correspondent’s report from PAK’s regional capital “yellow journalism” — a term referring to sensationalized, inaccurate reporting. No formal public ban on the outlet has been announced, however.
Kashmir is one of the world’s most long-standing disputed territories, with both India and Pakistan claiming full sovereignty over the region while each controls only a portion of it. Coverage of unrest in Pakistan-administered Kashmir has long been an extremely politically sensitive topic for the Pakistani government. Two local Pakistani journalists speaking to the BBC confirmed they had been explicitly warned by their editors to avoid covering the ongoing unrest.