JUST days after Islamabad had hosted the most significant direct talks between the US and Iran in decades, the Jerusalem Post carried a piece expressing solemn concern at Imran Khan’s incarceration, warning that Pakistan faced “a defining test” for its democratic fabric. Ask yourself: what was happening in Pakistan that week that might have made an editor reach for that particular story, with that particular angle, at that particular time? The country was entrusted to mediate between Washington and Tehran. If that is a democracy in crisis, one wonders what a democracy in good health looks like.

I want to be careful here. I am not a lifafa (government apologist). Pakistan has real problems — press freedom, political repression, Imran Khan in a cell. These are legitimate stories. But legitimacy and timing are two different things. Pakistan did what it always does with guests. It opened the door wide. Foreign correspondents were welcomed, hosted, taken around — offered kababs, briefings and the carefully arranged access. And some, predictably, were approached by people with grievances to air, stories to place, agendas to move. You invite the world’s press and someone will try to use them as a mailbox.

But I want to sit with a more........

© Dawn