Media Coverage

Pakistani media strictly censors LGBT related news stories. In late 2013, the government of Pakistan censored the website Queerpk.com from being viewed.When a Chinese court accepted to hear a case regarding the issue of same-sex marriage, the news story received substantial international coverage. However, in the Pakistani version of the International New York Times (Express Tribune), the picture accompanying the article was censored and a blank space was left on the front page of the newspaper. Daily Times columnist Farman Nawaz raised several questions about this kind of journalistic approach. However, Farman Nawaz (editor of Border Times Pakistan) took a different approach while writing for Global Times China. He wrote "Secular and liberal viewpoints are not given space on the pages of newspapers and news channels in Pakistan and liberals have to wrap their ideas in religion and customs to make them worth publishing. But people have found social media a more accommodating space".