Malik Siraj Akbar/CPJ Guest Blogger

Malik Siraj Akbar is a Pakistani journalist based in Washington. He founded the first Baloch online newspaper, The Baloch Hal.

Pakistani police and supporters of the Baluchistan National Party clash in Quetta, Pakistan on July 14, 2010. (AP)

Why I fled Pakistan

In May 2006, at the age of 23, I joined the Daily Times, Pakistan’s most liberal English-language newspaper, as a bureau chief. I was perhaps the youngest bureau chief to cover the country’s largest province, Baluchistan, and its longstanding, deadly insurgency. I covered fierce military operations, daily bomb blasts, rocket attacks, enforced disappearances, torture of…

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Reporters in Baluchistan have organized a string of protests over lack of safety. (ONLINE News Network)

Baluchistan’s press under siege

Reporters in Pakistan’s conflict-stricken province of Baluchistan have been organizing to display their anger against the continued death threats they have been receiving from government secret services, religious militant groups, and armed nationalist organizations. Their most recent demonstration on October 1 was only one in a string of protests to confront the problem.

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