(Bangkok) – In 2025, Pakistani authorities deployed vague and overbroad laws to intensify their crackdown on media freedom, political opposition, and civil society groups, Human Rights Watch said today in its World Report 2026.
“Pakistani authorities have increased suppression in violation of Pakistan’s international human rights obligations,” said Elaine Pearson, Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s government should focus on addressing longstanding human rights issues and stop muzzling those who bring attention to them.”
In the 529-page World Report 2026, its 36th edition, Human Rights Watch reviews human rights practices in more than 100 countries. In his introductory essay, Executive Director Philippe Bolopion writes that breaking the authoritarian wave sweeping the world is the challenge of a generation. With the human rights system under unprecedented threat from the Trump administration and other global powers, Bolopion calls on rights-respecting democracies and civil society to build a strategic alliance to defend fundamental freedoms.
- Government threats and attacks on the media throughout 2025 created a climate of fear among journalists and civil society groups. Journalists faced harassment, arbitrary arrest, enforced disappearance, and physical attack for reporting critical of the government or militant groups.
- Pakistani authorities enforced blasphemy law provisions that have provided a pretext for violence against religious minorities, leaving them vulnerable to arbitrary arrest and prosecution. A Human Rights Watch report documented how blasphemy laws have been exploited for blackmail and profit, and have targeted the poor and minorities in unlawful evictions and land grabs. In October, the Pakistan government announced plans to reform the country’s blasphemy law by introducing procedural safeguards.
- The government continued its campaign of expelling Afghan refugees, confirming in July that even Afghans who had been recognized as refugees for decades would face deportation. Throughout 2025, the authorities used violence and intimidation to coerce at least 531,700 Afghans to leave Pakistan.
- Nongovernmental organizations reported intimidation, harassment, and surveillance by government authorities. The government used its policy of regulating international nongovernmental organizations to impede the registration and functioning of international human rights and humanitarian groups.
Pakistani authorities should remove arbitrary restrictions on freedom of expression, amend discriminatory laws that promote violence against religious minorities, and halt mass deportations of Afghan refugees, Human Rights Watch said. Pakistan’s allies should press the government to revise laws, policies and practices to improve respect for human rights.
