On March 1, Ayesha Khalid, a researcher working for the New York-based Coalition of Women in Journalism, published an open letter on the organization's website. In it, she called out a Pakistan government spokesperson for instigating a string of personal attacks against reporters on Twitter.

The CWIJ, an international nonprofit, has been documenting cases of online harassment against Pakistani journalists — particularly women — since 2017.

The letter focused on a spokesperson and special assistant to Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan. It stated that “Mr. Shahbaz Gill routinely attacks journalists and thus starts a trend of online trolling against them. CFWIJ condemns this intimidation and bullying of female journalists from a government official. We urge the government authorities to step in and hold Mr. Shahbaz accountable for his misconduct.” 

“Journalists who are critical of the government are increasingly faced with vicious trolling peppered with hacking attempts in the name of ‘fact-checking’,” said Khalid, during a telephone conversation.