The film is the story of the filmmaker’s two activist friends who ran a famous blog known for satire of the powerful Pakistani military. One day they were illegally disappeared and brutally tortured by the army in a bid to silence them! The film goes into rare details of what it was like inside Pakistan’s notorious & secret torture cells and how the two bounced back and now continue their defiant activism in exile while being exposed to assassination attempts and death threats even abroad. The story then takes a personal turn as the filmmaker’s cousin, a renowned human rights defender, goes missing at the hands of the military. His teenage daughter starts an international campaign for his release. Will he ever come out of the notorious torture cells alive? Will the daughter ever see her Papa again? The State of Dissent examines what makes such dissidents put their lives at risk, their personal struggles and the massive price they pay for their ideals.