Pakistan arrests YouTuber Orya Maqbool Jan who is staunch army critic

LAHORE: A staunch critic of the Pakistan Army and YouTuber has been arrested here in Punjab province for allegedly fanning “religious hatred” and “defaming institutions” especially the military on social media, authorities said here on Thursday.

The arrest of Orya Maqbool Jan, a known political commentator, comes a week after intelligence agencies allegedly abducted another YouTuber and comedian for criticising the Shehbaz Sharif-led government.

The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) cybercrime wing said it raided Jan's residence in Lahore on Thursday and arrested him for stoking religious hatred against an “important personality” and institutions.

Jan, a columnist, poet, playwright and former civil servant, has a following of over one million subscribers to his YouTube channel. Last year he was detained by intelligence agencies for several days for openly criticising the role of the powerful military in politics and for supporting jailed former prime minister Imran Khan.

Following the arrest of Khan, the founder supremo of the Pakistan-Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party last August, a number of journalists and YouTubers in the country faced arrests, violence, and threats amid mass protests. Earlier last week, another Pakistani YouTuber and comedian Aun Ali Khosa was allegedly abducted by intelligence agencies for singing a song critical of the Shehbaz Sharif government and its backers. He, however, had returned home to Punjab province, his lawyer said on Monday.

Khosa was among the three other social media activists from Khan's PTI, who had recently been picked up allegedly by intelligence agencies. The other two were Naeem Ahmad Yasin and Arsalan Akbar and their families have maintained them as “missing.”