Pakistan frees journalist held for sharing anti-army content

QUETTA, Pakistan – The father of a Pakistani journalist says authorities have freed his son after a court in the country’s southwestern city of Quetta granted him bail.

Naimat Achakzai on Thursday said his son was granted bail by a judge Wednesday and that the journalist reached home in the evening.

He said he had been fighting a legal battle since June when a group of men wearing both plainclothes and the uniforms of the Frontier Corps stormed the house of his son Zafar Achakzai and took him to an unknown place.

He says he later learned that his son was detained for sharing content against security forces on social media.

Pakistani authorities are cracking down on journalists, making it an offence to criticize the government, the military or the police.