KARACHI: A special court in Islamabad on Saturday granted a week-long, pre-arrest bail to Harmeet Singh, a Pakistani Sikh journalist from Peshawar, after he was accused by the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) of launching a “misleading campaign” against Pakistan’s state institutions and security agencies during last month’s protest by jailed former prime minister Imran Khan’s party in the Pakistani capital.

Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party on Nov. 24 led thousands of supporters to Islamabad, seeking to pressure the government to release the ex-premier from jail and order an audit of Feb. 8 national election results. The protests resulted in clashes that Pakistan’s government says killed four law enforcers and injured hundreds of others.

The PTI says at least 12 of its supporters were killed and another 37 sustained gunshot injuries due to firing by law enforcers near Islamabad’s Jinnah Avenue on Nov. 26, while 139 of its supporters were still “missing.” Pakistani authorities have denied the deaths, saying security personnel had not been carrying live ammunition during the protest.

In a case registered against Singh, the FIA said the journalist built “false narrative and propagated misleading, concocted and baseless campaign against State Institutions and Security Agencies of Pakistan,” and promoted it through his X account on various instances, including the incident of Nov 24-27, when Khan supporters clashed with law enforcers in Islamabad.

“These false cases are meant to suppress the voices that criticize the government for its wrongdoings,” Singh said on Saturday, after being granted pre-arrest bail by the Islamabad court till Dec. 21.

The Sikh journalist said the charges against him were part of a “broader effort” to silence critics of the government.

“Their wish has always been to break the mirror that we hold up. It is our duty to show them the mirror, and we will keep showing it,” he added.

Singh, one of the few Pakistani Sikh journalists and anchors who has been critical of the government and Pakistan’s powerful military, is widely recognized for his outspoken stance on political issues.

The development comes weeks after police booked another journalist, Matiullah Jan, on charges that he was found in possession of 246 grams of narcotic methamphetamine (crystal meth) when his vehicle was stopped at the capital’s E-9 area.

Jan, a broadcaster working with Neo TV, was “picked up” from outside a hospital in Islamabad, where he was investigating alleged fatalities during the recent protests in support of jailed ex-premier Imran Khan, according to his son. He was released three days later.

A recent report by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) ranked Pakistan as the 12th-worst country for press freedom in South Asia. According to the CPJ, 103 journalists and media workers have been killed in Pakistan between 1992 and 2024.

In recent years, journalists in Pakistan have complained of increasing government and military censorship, intimidation and harassment as well as digital abuse. Authorities deny they persecute journalists. This has been an especially dangerous year for the press in Pakistan, with at least six journalists killed in direct or suspected relation to their work, the CPJ said in October.

Arab News approached the FIA and Information Minister Attaullah Tarar but they did not respond to requests for comment.

“The contents promulgated through his [Singh’s] tweets are inciting the general public of Pakistan toward the acts of violence and terrorism, and are coercing general public to commit offenses against the State Institutions and Security / Law Enforcement Agencies,” the FIA said in its report against the Sikh journalist, adding that they tended to create “a sense of fear, panic and insecurity” among people.

The FIA lodged the case against Singh under sections 9 (glorification of an offense), 10 (cyber terrorism), 11 (electronic forgery) and 24 (legal recognition of offenses) of Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act and section 505 (statements conducing to public mischief) of the Pakistan Penal Code.

Singh’s lawyer, Beena Faraz, condemned the government’s treatment of journalists, saying that “intimidation and harassment of the press have been a constant” in Pakistan’s history.

“If such things are happening under this government, they have happened in the past as well. It is part of every era to abduct journalists, intimidate them, and silence them through harassment,” she added.