Pakistan's Express Tribune criticised for deleting story on Pashtun Long March

 Islamabad [Pakistan]: In the wake of the Pakistan media's reluctance over covering the Pashtun Long March, the country's English daily, The Express Tribune (ET), was singled out by Twitter users on Monday for deleting a story on the protest after publishing it.

"ET deleted a story on Pakistani pashtun youth protest after publishing it. An example of how media surrender to pressure by those who don't want these stories to get coverage. https://twitter.com/etribune/status/982930089729019904 .," wrote Voice of America journalist, Nazrana Ghaffar.

Another user, who also shared a screenshot of the story, tweeted, "This tweet of @etribune stand deleted. Here is the screenshot :p

First they came for story to be deleted, then they came for tweet to be deleted and next they will come for the whole @etribune to be deleted. @manzoorpashteen is fighting for media freedom too."

Journalist-Activist Marvi Sirmed also lamented ET's decision to delete a published story on such a sensitive issue, saying in her tweet, "Screenshot of a tweet by Express Tribune with a link to the story about #PashtunLongMarch2Peshawar rally. Both the story and the link seem to have been deleted. Never seen media muzzled so blatantly and unabashedly. Never seen journos so silent on such coercion. Shameful."

With Pashtun youths staging protests against alleged extrajudicial arrests and killings of members of the ethnic minority by security forces, the blackout of the Pakistan media over the whole affair has been widely criticised by scholars, journalists and others both domestically and internationally.