JournalismPakistan.com | Published 6 years ago
Join our WhatsApp channel
Australia’s public broadcaster, ABC had its Sydney offices raided on Wednesday by Australian Federal Police (AFP) officers, a day after AFP raided the house of a News Corp senior political journalist.
The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) and its affiliate the Media Entertainment & Arts Alliance have condemned the raids and called on the government to take a stand to end the emerging pattern against press freedom.
On Wednesday morning, AFP officers served the ABC legal team with a warrant to search through email systems about the people mentioned in the search warrant and were searching "data holdings" between April 2016 and July 2017. Three AFP IT officers are currently in the Sydney offices conducting the search.
ABC reports that the raid is concerning a series of stories published in 2017 called The Afghan Files. The stories, by ABC investigative journalists Dan Oakes and Sam Clark, revealed allegations of unlawful killings and misconduct by Australian special forces in Afghanistan and were based off hundreds of pages of secret Defence documents leaked to the ABC.
MEAA Media Section President Marcus Strom said: “A second day of raids by the Australian Federal Police sets a disturbing pattern of assaults on Australian press freedom. This is nothing short of an attack on the public’s right to know. These raids are about intimidating journalists and media organisations because of their truth-telling. They are about more than hunting down whistleblowers that reveal what governments are secretly doing in our name, but also preventing the media from shining a light on the actions of government.
“It is equally clear that the spate of national security laws passed by the Parliament over the past six years have been designed not just to combat terrorism but to persecute and prosecute whistleblowers who seek to expose wrongdoing. These laws seek to muzzle the media and criminalise legitimate journalism. They seek to punish those that tell Australians the truth,” he said.
The ABC raids come after News Corp senior political reporter Annika Smethurst’s house was raided by AFP officers on Tuesday over an April 2018 report she wrote about a top secret government proposal. On Tuesday evening, journalist and radio presenter Ben Fordham reported that AFP had contacted him regarding a story he shared on his radio program about asylum seekers.
The IFJ said: “This is a deplorable pattern emerging in Australia with two raids on the media in as many days and reports of another journalist contacted by the AFP. We stand in solidarity with MEAA and our colleagues in Australia to demand an end to these intimidating and harassing activities. Journalists must be free to report without fear or favor, but these actions raise serious concerns about the future of press freedom in Australia.” – IFJ media release
October 31, 2025: Police foiled a plot to kill DawnNewsTV journalist Tahir Naseer in Rawalpindi after arresting suspects hired for Rs200,000. Naseer says threats followed his reporting.
October 31, 2025: CPJ calls on Pakistan to bring Imtiaz Mir’s killers to justice after the journalist was allegedly murdered by a banned militant group in Karachi.
October 30, 2025: The PFUJ has condemned a fabricated drug case against journalist Matiullah Jan, calling it an attempt to silence him and urging authorities to quash the charges immediately.
October 30, 2025: NewsOne TV remains on air but faces mass layoffs and delayed salaries, exposing Pakistan’s worsening media crisis and financial instability.
October 28, 2025: Sindh Police arrested four suspects linked to a banned outfit in the murder of journalist Imtiaz Mir, who was shot in Karachi in September 2025.
October 26, 2025: Riffat Ara Alvi, the mother of slain Pakistani journalist Arshad Sharif, has died, ending her relentless fight for justice following his killing in Kenya in 2022.
October 25, 2025: Veteran journalists and rights activists urge authorities to quash the fabricated drug case against Matiullah Jan, calling it an attack on media freedom.
October 24, 2025: PTV journalist Najam Wali Khan faces social media backlash after calling late SP Adeel Akbar a coward and a fool following his alleged suicide in Islamabad.
October 31, 2025 Radio Free Asia, a US government funded broadcaster covering tightly controlled Asian media environments, has suspended all news operations after federal funding dried up.
October 30, 2025 PSL franchise fees lag far behind IPL's USD 18.5B valuation as Pakistan Cricket Board's bureaucratic grip stifles growth. Hard numbers expose a stark reality.
October 30, 2025 India’s government has proposed strict new rules mandating the labelling of AI-generated and deepfake media to curb misinformation and ensure content authenticity on social platforms.
October 30, 2025 Vietnamese authorities seize BBC journalist’s passport amid interrogation, sparking outrage as Hanoi leader To Lam visits the UK. Rights groups urge her release.
October 30, 2025 CDEPS and CPJ condemn the arrest of 7TV’s Maimouna Ndour Faye and other journalists in a late October crackdown on Senegalese media over interviews with a wanted politician.