Female journalists unite to combat Shehbaz Gill’s misogynistic campaign against Asma Shirazi

The Network of Women Journalists for Digital Rights (NWJDR) has come forward to condemn the ongoing online harassment and gendered disinformation campaign against leading journalist and columnist Asma Shirazi.

The online campaign against Asma Shirazi is being spearheaded by  “prominent political party supporters, and political commentators and vloggers.”

Asma Shirazi, who is a senior journalist, a talk show host at a private channel and a columnist at BBC Urdu, is at the receiving end of the online hate curated by Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s leader, Shehbaz Gill. 

It all started with Asma’s criticism of PTI’s claims of getting relief through negotiations with the government and pressure from a backdoor channel. On her YouTube channel, Asma posted about the ongoing process of negotiations and reports of Trump’s influence, which some supporters of  PTI claim to have. In a video about the “End of talks or a pause before breakthrough,” Asma shared her insight on the matter and said that it has been observed lately that one of Trump’s aides, Richard Grenell, who had been posting very actively about freeing Imran Khan-PTI’s incarcerated leader- has stopped posting on social media all of a sudden because “Trump administration has strictly directed the new cabinet to not post anything without approval.”

Asma said that the new directive has resulted in silence from Grenall, who had become “a very active member of PTI.”

“So there is nothing going on which could bring hope to PTI followers…who had assumed Grenell is Trump,” Asma commented.

This part was taken out by Shehbaz Gill, and he posted on Twitter, “Military-backed journalist Asma Shirazi is accusing @RichardGrenell of behaving like a political worker for Imran Khan simply for speaking his mind! She thinks his tweets sound like he's part of Khan's team. Chilling attempt to stifle free speech.”

This prompted many social media accounts attributed to the supporters of PTI to attack Asma’s journalistic ethics, calling her biased and stating that her analysis was an attempt to curb the freedom of expression. Her columns for BBC Urdu were dug out to show that she has a prejudice towards the party.

However, in the said vlog, she went ahead and appreciated PTI for taking a step back and agreeing to negotiate while stating that the matter will remain suspended till Donald Trump's administration takes over in America. Additionally, she made it a point to mention that ruling party PMLN’s social media took her appreciating and framed it as a remark from her side that “Imran Khan lait gaya” which can be translated as “Imran Khan has surrendered.” PTI social media took it up and started a smear campaign against the senior journalist.

According to Asma, she never used such language, and this is a “misogynistic” campaign against her.

In a separate vlog, Asma lambasted Gill for using Imran Khan’s name and smear campaign against women in politics and journalism to earn “dollars” while sitting abroad. She even cited examples of Gill’s previous instances of referring to women as prostitutes and cursing them, quoting his interaction with fellow journalist Nadia Ahmed and herself in the past. 

This led to an onslaught of hate, targeting her credibility, character and journalistic integrity with Shehbaz calling her an “internalized misogynist.”

After Asma’s vlog was published, the International Coalition for Women in Journalism stepped in and issued a statement to condemn the online abuse and harassment faced by Asma Shirazi. “This is not the first time Shirazi has faced such abuse. PTI members, workers, and supporters have repeatedly harassed her online for her journalism. These coordinated attacks aim to silence women journalists and suppress critical reporting,” the statement read.

Previously,  Asma was bullied for one of her articles for BBC Urdu: Kahani Baray Ghar Ki. Written in 2021 when PTI was in government, and it was inferred from her write-up that she has accused the then first lady of the country and wife of Imran Khan, Bushra Bibi, for being involved in black magic where in reality, Asma wrote about how the economy cannot be saved by “slaughtering goats” or “spilling the blood of pigeons.”

Shehbaz Gill was also at the forefront of the campaign when Asma criticised ARY News’ coverage of a Supreme Court hearing where her picture was used despite her not being involved in the case.

Former Senator Mustafa Nawaz Khokhar posted, “In the last decade or so I’ve been to hundreds of Asma Shirazi‘s shows. Can’t point out a single one which wasn’t balanced. It’s simply unfair to expect journalists to subscribe to a particular narrative or to hound them when they don’t. Nauseating sexist witch-hunt!”

Simultaneously, NWJDR has raised its voice for the protection of female journalists against cyberbullying in the country. As per a report by International Centre for Journalists, Facebook and X are the two least safe platforms, with 39 percent and 26 percent of respondents, respectively, expressing concerns. The research also laid out that nearly 73 percent of women journalists experience online violence.

While talking to The Current, Asma Shirazi emphasised that these tactics are used to snub the voices of journalists at large. “The campaigns like these are meant to threaten journalists and forbid them from speaking or writing the truth.”

While shedding light on the purpose of these campaigns, she said, “The purpose of these campaigns is to make people fearful or target one person to spread the fear among all that nobody comments on this one thing or anything at all, and this happens with women all the time, be it me or others. They just want to make an example out of us.”

“It is not easy to combat an organised campaign like this. That is why I have seen so many people getting silenced in the years gone by,” she lamented.

Talking about Shehbaz Gill’s campaign, she said, “It’s been five years that this person is running a one-sided campaign against me. Neither me nor any other journalist have ever talked back.”

Stressing on the present circumstances, she said, “Nowadays, they [cyber-bullies] are using pictures of women to earn money through YouTube. These could be women in politics or journalists. They put their pictures on [thumbnails] make fun of them, write trashy things about them, increase their viewership through that and earn dollars. This needs to stop.”

On a concluding note, she said, “There has to be a method with which we can control them, and even if we can’t, we can raise our voices. I wish and I hope that all the journalists, both male and female, talk about it. I know so many are reluctant, and maybe that is because they are afraid.

We won’t ignore them from here on, and they’ll get a reply from our side. They can’t just keep saying anything. The faceless trolls are hard to fight, but we will keep challenging their known faces.”