Daud Khattak is managing editor of RFE/RL's Radio Mashaal.
Pakistan has released 12 members of the Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan from custody, a source told RFE/RL on December 8, amid ongoing negotiations to reach a peace deal with the Islamist group fighting a guerrilla war in the northwestern tribal region bordering Afghanistan.
The Pakistani Taliban has intensified its insurgency against Islamabad in recent months. But sources say the two sides have been holding secret talks over a cease-fire.
Public anger is rising in Pakistan, where fuel and food prices are soaring. The price hikes have prompted protests, a move that has triggered fears of political upheaval.
Journalists across Pakistan are expressing outrage over a proposed set of regulations they say will further curtail press freedom and bolster powers of the government already seen as imposing censorship to control the media and free speech.
Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan is under fire at home for praising China’s political system, but Beijing and Islamabad’s partnership is set to only deepen.
The speaker of the lower house in the Pakistani parliament has banned seven lawmakers from entering the parliament building after a ruckus in which opposition and ruling party members hurled abuses and books at each other.
Pakistani television reporter Hamid Mir, who was recently banned from hosting his popular talk show, told RFE/RL that he will remain in the South Asian nation despite dangers to his life.
The Pakistani Taliban has reemerged after years in the wilderness. But it is no longer the same militant outfit that wreaked havoc in Pakistan from 2007 to 2014.
In Pakistan’s Sindh Province, influential cleric Mian Mitha operates what his opponents describe as a “conversion factory” in which young Hindu women are allegedly converted to Islam by force and married off to Muslim men. Few Hindu families feel empowered to challenge him.
As many as 1,000 Hindu girls in Pakistan are forcibly converted to Islam each year and married off to Muslim men. RFE/RL's Radio Mashaal spoke to desperate families who have been torn apart and questioned the clerics behind the alleged forced conversions.
Pakistani officials have tried to tackle the problem of excessive dowries involved in marriages, but the centuries-old tradition persists.
A spike in COVID infections in Pakistan has prompted authorities to reimpose restrictions just weeks after relaxing them. But traders and school owners have vowed to resist the new shutdowns, which they say target them unfairly.
Recently discovered remains of a Pakistani teacher killed 13 years ago have raised fresh questions about the earlier shooting death of an investigative journalist who was reporting on U.S. drone strikes in North Waziristan.
Pakistan has nearly fenced off the entire length of its disputed 2,670-kilometer border with Afghanistan, purportedly to stop militants from crossing the porous frontier. But observers say the greatest impact will be felt by Pashtun communities straddling the border.
Despite declaring victory in flattening the curve of coronavirus infections in early September, Pakistan is now bracing for a second wave of the pandemic as numbers are starting to rise since lockdown measures were lifted in August.
A diplomatic spat between close allies Pakistan and Saudi Arabia has exposed serious fissures in their relationship.
Pakistan is cracking down on social-media platforms, with critics accusing authorities of trying to control the free flow of information.
Pakistan has capitulated to pressure from hard-line Islamic clerics and politicians to halt construction on Islamabad's first Hindu temple.
Pakistan's leaders have championed a Turkish television drama that has triggered debate in the Muslim-majority country.
The Pakistani government, backed by the powerful military, is seeking to roll back a decade-old constitutional amendment that made it harder for the military to seize power.
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