IT is a trend that one associates with authoritarian regimes, which crush protest and cannot tolerate even peaceful dissent. Sadly, what happened at the National Press Club in Islamabad yesterday is just another example of the speed at which the government is divesting itself of whatever democratic standards it claims to uphold.

It hardly matters that the minister of state for interior rushed to the premises to apologise ‘unconditionally’ or that the interior minister ordered an ‘inquiry’ into the police intrusion and subsequent violence against journalists at the club. It does not matter that the authorities tried to explain that the police action was initially targeted........

© Dawn