Pakistan seeks YouTube ban on 27 opposition and journalist channels
The channels at risk of being blocked in Pakistan include those belonging to the main opposition party, its leader and jailed former Prime Minister Imran Khan, as well as several journalists critical of the government, according to a court order dated June 24 and circulated this week.
The judicial magistrate court in Islamabad said it was seeking the ban after the National Cyber Crime Investigation Agency criticised the channels in a June 2 report for 'sharing highly intimidating, provocative and derogatory contents against state institutions and officials of the state of Pakistan'.
Digital rights campaigners say that any ban would further undermine free speech in Pakistan, where the authorities are accused of stifling newspapers and television, and social media is seen as one of the few outlets for dissent.
YouTube told 27 content creators that their channels could be taken down if they did not comply with the court orders.
'If you fail to do so, as per our local law obligations, we may comply with the request without further notice,' the popular video-sharing platform said in emails this week to the channel owners, according to a notice seen by the Reuters news agency.
YouTube's regional communications manager did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for a comment.
Threat of criminal charges
Pakistan's State Minister for Interior Talal Chaudhry said the content creators would also face criminal charges.
'You cannot use these cellphones and the social media to create chaos,' he told local Geo News TV. 'There are laws to regulate, and they will have to work under these laws,' he said.
One of the creators, Asad Toor, who was among those served the court order, shared the document on X. The order listed the names of the blocked channels, including those run by prominent journalists and content creators such as Imran Riaz Khan, Matiullah Jan, and Habib Akram.
🚨🚨Received this from @YouTube. State think they can silent us but I assure everybody that I will keep covering Balochs, Missing persons, Blasphemy gang victims, minorities, fundamental rights, compromised judges, rigged elections, hybrid regime & unconditional role of forces. pic.twitter.com/yim0m5MfDH
— Asad Ali Toor (@AsadAToor) July 8, 2025
Toor, who has more than 333,000 YouTube subscribers, said the move was aimed at undermining fundamental and constitutional rights of the people, political parties and other dissident groups.
'It is not about me. It is about these people who are on the left side of the state,' he told Reuters. 'I have dedicated my platform for these underdogs who have no place to go to and raise their voices against the state oppression.'
The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) expressed concern about the court order, saying the blanket ban 'conflates dissent with criminal activity'.
'The wholesale blocking of entire channels—rather than addressing specific instances of unlawful or hateful speech — sets a dangerous precedent,' HRCP said in a statement.
HRCP is greatly concerned by the recent court directive blocking 27 YouTube channels, reportedly following a complaint by the Federal Investigation Agency. The wholesale blocking of entire channels—rather than addressing specific instances of unlawful or hateful speech in…
— Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (@HRCP87) July 9, 2025
After the government clamped down on traditional media, many independent reporters migrated to YouTube, as did journalists and commentators sympathetic to Khan, who was removed from office in 2022.
'It's not only about anchors getting fired or YouTube channels getting banned. It's what they are not allowing to be told and the human rights abuse they are trying to hide from the world,' said Zulfikar Bukhari, a spokesperson for Khan's Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party.
Khan has said his party has faced a military-backed crackdown since his removal, a charge the army denies.
'In this day and age, you can't suppress digital media,' said Bukhari.
Government crackdown
The order is the latest in a series of laws and regulations from Islamabad that have enabled the authorities to crack down on critics and dissidents. It has blocked social media platforms like X, Facebook and TikTok on several occasions.
In January, Pakistan's parliament introduced a new amendment in the Electronic Crimes Act to further regulate cyber content, which included a new social media regulatory authority with its own investigation agency and tribunals.
Such tribunals will be able to try and punish alleged offenders with prison sentences of as long as three years and fines of two million rupees ($7,200) for dissemination of information deemed 'false or fake'.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Al Jazeera
a day ago
- Al Jazeera
Three suspected rebels killed in firefight in India-administered Kashmir
Indian security forces have killed three suspected rebels in India-administered Kashmir during fighting in a national park, the military says. The incident occurred on Monday in the mountains of Dachigam, about 30km (18 miles) east of the disputed region's main city of Srinagar. 'Three terrorists have been neutralised in an intense firefight,' the Indian army said in a statement on social media. 'Operation continues.' Muslim-majority Kashmir has been divided between India and Pakistan since their independence from British rule in 1947, and the South Asian nuclear powers, which both claim Kashmir in full, have fought three wars over its control. Since 1989, Kashmiri rebels have been fighting against Indian rule, demanding independence or the region's merger with Pakistan. India accuses Pakistan of backing the rebellion, but Islamabad says it only provides diplomatic support to the Kashmiris' struggle for self-determination. Indian media reports said the three men killed on Monday were suspected to be behind the April 22 attack in India-administered Kashmir's resort town of Pahalgam, which killed 26 people. Al Jazeera could not immediately verify the involvement of the men in the April attack, which sparked a four-day military conflict with Pakistan that killed more than 70 people on both sides. The Indian military did not immediately identify those killed on Monday, but a police officer told the AFP news agency on condition of anonymity that they were all 'foreigners'. This month, the United States designated The Resistance Front (TRF), the group accused of being behind the Pahalgam attack, as a 'foreign terrorist organisation'. Monday's incident took place near the Hindu shrine of Amarnath, to which more than 350,000 people from across India have travelled as part of an annual pilgrimage that began on July 3. Fighting between rebels and Indian government forces in India-administered Kashmir has drastically declined during the past five years, but many local fighters have been killed since the Pahalgam attack, according to officials. India denies US claims In a related development, India's Defence Minister Rajnath Singh on Monday said New Delhi had ended its military conflict with Pakistan in May as it had met all its objectives and had not responded to any outside pressure. Singh's remarks during a discussion in parliament on the April 22 attack effectively rejected US President Donald Trump's claim that he brokered the truce between the two neighbours. 'India halted its operation because all the political and military objectives studied before and during the conflict had been fully achieved,' Singh said. 'To suggest that the operation was called off under pressure is baseless and entirely incorrect.' New Delhi has said Pakistani nationals were involved in the Pahalgam killings. Pakistan denied involvement and sought an independent investigation. In their military conflict in May, the two sides used fighter jets, missiles, drones and other munitions, killing dozens of people, before Trump announced they had agreed to a ceasefire. Pakistan thanked Trump for brokering the agreement, but India said the US had no hand in it and that New Delhi and Islamabad had agreed between themselves to end the fighting. Indian opposition groups have questioned what they say is the intelligence failure behind the Pahalgam attack and the government's inability to capture the assailants – issues they are expected to raise during the parliament discussion. They have also criticised Prime Minister Narendra Modi for coming under pressure from Trump and agreeing to end the fighting, along with reports that Indian jets were shot down during the fighting. Pakistan claimed it downed five Indian planes in combat, and India's highest ranking general admitted suffering 'initial losses in the air,' but declined to give details.
Al Jazeera
2 days ago
- Al Jazeera
Has the US cancelled free speech?
Why are US professors suing to challenge the Trump administration's crackdown on pro-Palestine activism? Several groups of professors in the United States are suing the Trump administration over its policy of arresting, detaining, cancelling visas, and deporting students who participate in pro-Palestinian advocacy. The crackdown on free speech is creating a chilling effect across US academia, argues Jamil Jaffer, executive director of the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, which is one of the organisations that brought the lawsuit. Jaffer tells host Steve Clemons that the issue is much wider than the rights of non-citizens in the country. The government's actions have the effect of 'stifling a political viewpoint that the government doesn't like'.
Al Jazeera
5 days ago
- Al Jazeera
‘Shoot them': Sheikh Hasina ordered firing on Bangladesh protesters in 2024
Former prime minister of Bangladesh, Sheikh Hasina, 'issued an open order' to 'use lethal weapons' on students protesting against her government's policies last year and shoot 'wherever they find them', her secret phone call recordings, accessed by Al Jazeera, have revealed. Hasina, who ruled Bangladesh for 15 years, resigned from office and fled to India on August 5 after weeks of bloody protests and brutal action by government forces killed nearly 1,400 people and wounded more than 20,000, according to the country's International Criminal Tribunal (ICT). The Al Jazeera Investigative Unit (I-Unit) had the recordings analysed by audio forensic experts to check for AI manipulation, and the callers were identified by voice matching. In one call, recorded on July 18 by the National Telecommunications Monitoring Centre (NTMC), Hasina told an ally that she had ordered her security forces to use lethal force. 'My instructions have already been given. I've issued an open order completely. Now they will use lethal weapons, shoot wherever they find them,' she said.. 'That has been instructed. I have stopped them so far … I was thinking about the students' safety.' Later in the call with Sheikh Fazle Noor Taposh, the mayor of Dhaka South and a relative of Hasina, the former PM talks about using helicopters to control demonstrations. 'Wherever they notice any gathering, it's from above – now it's being done from above – it has already started in several places. It has begun. Some [protesters] have moved.' At the time, Bangladeshi security forces had denied firing on protesters from the air, but Shabir Sharif, an accident and emergency doctor at the Popular Medical College Hospital in Dhaka, told the I-Unit that shots were fired from a helicopter 'targeting our hospital entrance'. He added that doctors attended to student protesters with unusual bullet wounds. 'The bullets entered either the shoulder or the chest, and they all remained inside the body. We were receiving more of these types of patients at that time,' he said. 'When we looked at the X-rays, we were surprised because there were huge bullets.' Al Jazeera has not been able to verify what type of bullets were used. The calls may be presented by prosecutors as evidence before the ICT, which has charged Hasina, her ministers and security officials with crimes against humanity. Hasina and two other officials were indicted on July 10, and the trial is scheduled to begin in August. Hasina's surveillance network, the NTMC, recorded these conversations. The NTMC has previously been accused of spying on not just opposition figures but even Hasina's political allies. Tajul Islam, chief prosecutor for the ICT, said the former prime minister knew she was being recorded. 'In some cases, the other side [would say we] … 'should not discuss this over telephone'. And the reply was from the prime minister, 'Yes, I know, I know, I know, I know, it is being recorded, no problem.'' 'She has dug a very deep ditch for others. Now she's in the ditch,' Islam said. Student protests started peacefully in June 2024 after the high court reintroduced an unpopular quota system that reserved state jobs for the families of veterans who fought in Bangladesh's war of independence in 1971. Many students felt the system favoured supporters of the ruling Awami League party, which had led the freedom movement, and that many jobs in the civil service were not awarded on merit. On July 16, student protester Abu Sayed was shot dead by police in the northern city of Rangpur. His death was a turning point in the July uprising, leading to a national outcry and intensifying the protests. In one secret phone recording of Hasina's ally and economics adviser, Salman F Rahman, he is heard trying to get hold of Sayed's postmortem report. During the call, Rahman quizzes inspector general of police, Chowdhury Abdullah Al-Mamun, wanting to know what had happened to the report. 'Why is it taking so long to get the postmortem report? Who's playing hide and seek? Rangpur Medical?' he asked, referring to Rangpur Medical College and Hospital, which was carrying out the autopsy on Sayed. Rangpur Medical College Hospital's Dr Rajibul Islam told Al Jazeera that police forced him to change Sayed's postmortem report five times to remove any reference to multiple bullet wounds. 'They wanted to write a report stating that Abu Sayed Bhai died due to injuries from stone-throwing … [whereas] he died from police bullets.' Twelve days after Sayed's death, his family were flown to Dhaka for a televised event with the prime minister. In all, about 40 families were gathered – all of them had relatives killed in the protests. 'Hasina forced us to come to Ganabhaban,' said Sayed's father, Maqbul Hossain, referring to the PM's residence. 'They forced us to come; otherwise, they might have tortured us in another way.' As the cameras recorded the event, Hasina handed out money to each family. She told Sayed's sister, Sumi Khatun: 'We will deliver justice to your family.' Khatun replied to the PM: 'It was shown in the video that the police shot him. What is there to investigate here? Coming here was a mistake.' In a statement to Al Jazeera, an Awami League spokesperson said Hasina had never used the phrase 'lethal weapons', and did not specifically authorise the security forces to use lethal force. 'This [Hasina's phone] recording is either cherry-picked, doctored or both.' The statement added that government efforts to investigate Abu Sayed's death were 'genuine'.
