New Foreign Media Facilitation Guidelines, issued by the Information Ministry, now require foreign correspondents and Pakistani nationals working for international outlets to obtain a No Objection Certificate before reporting outside Islamabad, Karachi, and Lahore. The government said the rules create an administrative system to verify media workers and coordinate reporting, not restrict journalism. Political commentator Mustafa Nawaz Khokhar called the measures an attempt to “choke international media” in a country already ranked 153rd out of 180 on the World Press Freedom Index.