Pak journo Hamid Mir taken off screen

Prominent Pakistani political TV talk-show host Hamid Mir was suspended from his regular program on Monday, his media group Geo News network said, following comments he made last week against the powerful military for its role in media censorship. 

Mir, who survived an assassination attempt in 2014, is the latest target of an alleged military backed media crackdown that started in the run-up to 2018 election that brought PM Imran Khan to power.

Critics say the crackdown is part of a campaign to coerce Khan's opposition and silence critical voices in the media to prop him up as the military's protege. Both the military and Khan deny the accusation.

"Forcing a popular news talk show host like Hamid Mir off the air after voicing criticism of Pakistan's military, and support for a fellow journalist, only underscores the lack of true press freedom in Pakistan," said Steven Butler, CPJ's Asia program coordinator in a statement.

"I was banned twice in the past. Lost jobs twice. Survived assassination attempts but cannot stop raising voice for the rights given in the constitution," said Mir, who hosts one of the country's highest-rated political talk shows on Geo News, part of the country's largest media group. "Nothing new for me."

Over the weekend, Mir criticised the military during a protest rally that was held against last week's assault on a former TV news producer, Asad Ali Toor, who has been producing video blogs on his YouTube channel, often questioning the army's role in politics. Toor told police he was tortured by three gunmen who broke into his apartment, and that one of them introduced himself as an official from the Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) spy agency. The ISI "completely disassociated" itself from the incident, the information ministry has said.