Each year, the HRCP's report sparks a familiar ritual: civil society erupts in outrage, the state stays mute and the powerful grow defensive. The 2024 report, however, lays bare a fundamental breakdown in how we govern and treat the public, particularly the most vulnerable. It's a blunt diagnosis of a country steadily unlearning democracy, shedding compassion and settling into repression.

The findings are impossible to miss, unless one is willfully blind. From sweeping protest curbs to laws that equate criticism with defamation to rising judicial meddling, dissent is being actively crushed. The 26th Amendment — rammed through in majoritarian fashion — and laws like the Public Order Act and the Punjab Defamation Act aren't one-offs. They're part of a pattern. The message is clear: citizens are no longer seen as participants, but only as problems to be managed.

Freedom of expression continues to shrink, per the report. The ban on X drags on like an old wound that refuses to........

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