Voice News shows resolve against another attack on freedom of expression
LAHORE: Voice news has thwarted yet another attack on the freedom of expression and fought to successfully reclaim some digital assets belonging to the news organisation.
For the past four months, Voice News, the only mainstream channel for young and working-class journalists, has been subjected to cyber-attacks on digital platforms. This coincides with the joining of veteran journalist, Ahmer Shaheen, as the Chief Editor of the media platform. Voice News, with the assistance of a committee to protect journalists (CPJ) and Meta platforms Incorporate (MPI), was able to repel these attacks and reclaim some hacked digital assets.
Malik Hasnain, the chairman of Voice News, spoke with the Voice News team and informed them of the recent cyber-attacks. The entire news team was revitalised by this visit and showed its resolve to fight against these attacks on freedom of expression.
On this occasion, Voice News’ chief editor and CEO, Ahmer Shaheen, stated that we have investigated the cyber-attacks and track down some of the hackers. He also thanked the CPJ and the MPI for their assistance in reclaiming some of the digital assets.
Shaheen apprised the Voice News team that journalists have been surviving all kinds of attacks as individually and as organisations, for the past twenty years and will continue to do so. Moreover, he reiterated that Voice News is the only channel for young and working-class journalists for the first time. We will always fight against those who oppose freedom of expression, which is a fundamental right of every citizen.
“This time, not only will be expose those behind the attack, we will also go after them since we have the IP addresses of the hackers who attack us on our digital platforms. We are very sure that we will be able to regain custody of our digital platforms in the near future.”
Shaheen narrowly escaped an assassination attempt in July last year, however no proper investigation took place after the attack, no arrests were made and the CCTV footage of the incident was not taken secured to catch the culprits. Despite condemnations from journalist/media bodies within Pakistan and internationally, and widespread news coverage of the attack, security institutions and the government did not respond to any media inquiries in this regard.