By Mustufa Qadri, Dawn, June 7, 2012

IT was on May 31, 2011 that Saleem Shahzad’s broken body was found in Mandi Bahauddin, several kilometres from his home in Islamabad.

Abducted, tortured and murdered, the journalist had previously complained of attempts to intimidate him by the powerful Inter Services Intelligence agency (ISI).Twelve months on and, despite a public outcry and a government inquiry, little has changed for reporters covering topics deemed sensitive in Pakistan. No one has been prosecuted for the kidnapping and killing of Shahzad and there are no signs that the wheels of justice are turning. And this story is not unusual.

As Amnesty International documented in its annual report launched recently, the Pakistani authorities have a striking consistency when it came to the killing of journalists. So far as we are aware, no one has been convicted for killing a journalist in Pakistan since Omar Shaikh was sentenced to death for beheading Wall Street Journal correspondent Daniel Pearl in 2002.

And still the death toll rises. At least three journalists have been killed this year in attacks that appear related to their work [....]