Pakistan, June 22 -- For a country too often defined by headlines written elsewhere, Pakistan has just received something quietly transformative: a mirror of its own making. The State of Freedom Report Pakistan 2026 is the nation's first comprehensive, homegrown assessment of freedoms, and it arrives not to rank or reprimand, but to establish a baseline. Published by Mishal Pakistan in collaboration with the Institute of Strategic Studies Islamabad, and authored by Amir Jahangir and Puruesh Chaudhary, the report does something genuinely fresh. It places the lived experiences of citizens, rather than distant institutional metrics, at the very centre of the freedom conversation.

This is a timely contribution. With a population surpassing 2...