Pakistan: Socialist website ‘Jeddojehad’ banned, writers repressed (plus Alternative Viewpoint statement)

First published at Tidningen Global.

The Daily Jeddojehad (Struggle) website, jeddojehad.com, was banned in Pakistan on August 4. Launched in 2019, Jeddojehad was Pakistan’s first and only socialist (online) daily, posting reports in Urdu, Pashto and Persian. While there was no official notification or explanation, the ban has been imposed owing to Jeddojehad’s coverage of Pakistani-administered Jammu Kashmir (PaJK).

On August 6, the ISI (the Inter-Services Intelligence) raided Editor of Jeddojehad, Farooq Sulehria’s family home to arrest him. In his absence, his younger brother and two nephews were arrested. The ISI is military’s intelligence agency. While it has no legal authority to conduct such raids, an all-powerful military/ISI is considered beyond the law. The pretext to justify the raid, the ISI staffers offered to Sulehria’s family, was his articles he wrote on Kashmir.

Since Farooq Sulehria was abroad at the time of the raid, he escaped the arrest. However, he can not return to Pakistan where he teaches at Beaconhouse National University, Lahore, as an Assistant Professor. Based in PaJk, his co-editor, Harris Qadeer, is in hiding ever since the ban. Qadeer works as a Jeddojehad full-timer. Previously, Qadeer edited a PaJK-based broadsheet, Daily Majadla (Dailectic). Daily Majadla was also banned, exactly eight years ago in August 2018, owing to its hard-hitting reporting.

Meantime, since June 5, PaJK has been convulsed by a mass uprising. The state has responded with outrageous violence. At least, 90 people have been gunned down since June 5. The mass movement, spearheaded by the Joint Peoples Action Committee (JAAC), is demanding better governance and an end to election manipulation 

The banning of Jeddojehad is not an isolated event. The axe fell on Al Jazeera too. Al Jazeera was also banned in Pakistan on the morning of August 4. According to the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Al Jazeera was guilty of “yellow journalism”. Al Jazeera has been proscribed because of the critical coverage of sham elections in PaJk conducted, amid violence and repression, during July in three phases. The Al Jazeera correspondent was guilty of pointing out, in his live reporting of elections, that the polling stations were largely empty. Notably, while most global media outlets have ignored the ongoing state-violence and peaceful struggle in PaJk on the JAAC platform, Al Jazeera was consistently covering it, even if the coverage was somewhat problematic.

Likewise, noted journalist-Youtuber Danish Irshad, based in Rawalpindi (Pakistan) but hailing from PaJk, has been placed on Pakistan’s Fourth Schedule. The Fourth Schedule is a notorious terrorism watchlist that exposes Irshad to state monitoring and a set of legal restrictions on his movement, finances and public life. Irshad, previously working with country’s largest news channel, Geo, was covering the situation in PaJk on his social media platforms. He also interviewed Jeddoejhad editor, Harris Qadeer. In fact, Qadeer, in recent weeks, was not merely interviewed by Pakistan or PaJk-specific youtubers but has been quoted in international media outlets in their coverage of PaJK’s ongoing turmoil. He often features, as an expert commentator on PaJk, in media and research reports.

Ironically, days before the Pakistani state imposed a ban on Jeddojehad, the Indian state banned not merely Jeddojehad’s Facebook page in India but the Facebook pages of both its editors remain banned in India.

The day a ban was placed on Al Jazeera, Pakistan’s Ministry of Information and Broadcasting also issued strict instructions for the international media operatives in Pakistan. According the new ‘Foreign Media Facilitation Guidelines 2026’ issued on August 4, foreign correspondents, including Pakistani journalists working for global media, are required to obtain a No Objection Certificate (NOC) to cover news outside the metropolitan cities of Islamabad, Lahore, and Karachi in a country of 280 million. Besides an advice to seek the NOC, the guidelines also stipulates a not-so-concealed threat to journalists working for international media: they may have their accreditation revoked in case of “acts contrary to Pakistan’s ideology, sovereignty, security, or public order” .

The restrictions, mentioned above, may also be viewed in the context of an ever-expanding culture of authoritarian censorship of media in Pakistan. Days before the banning of Jeddojehad and Al Jazeera, Aaj News, a mainstream news channel, removed noted anchor-person Muneeze Jahangir from Spotlight, the show she was conducting since 2014. Pakistan ranked 153rd on the “World Press Freedom Index”, the Reporters Without Borders (RSF) issued earlier this year. In 2016, Pakistan slotted 147 on the same index.

The banning of Jeddojehad on the heels of an official ban on Al Jazeera is not a coincidence. Owing to a complete internet shutdown in PaJk, Jeddojehad became the only credible platform providing the latest and most credible information on the events in PaJK. Meantime, the mainstream media in Pakistan either stays silent on Jammu Kashmir or amplifies the statist propaganda, vilifying the JAAC leadership.

Beyond the coverage, Jeddojehad has been instrumental in shaping and influencing the ongoing struggle. Jeddojehad, in collaboration with seven progressive Jammu-Kashmir political organisations, issued a joint statement seeking international solidarity for the people of Pakistani-controlled Jammu and Kashmir. The joint appeal has been endorsed and published internationally.

Alternative Viewpoint: Stop the repression of Daily Jeddojehad and its editorial team members

First published at Alternative Viewpoint.

Alternative Viewpoint expresses its full solidarity with Farooq Sulehria, editor of Daily Jeddojehad, his co-editor Harris Qadeer, and the entire Jeddojehad collective, who are facing an escalating campaign of repression by the Pakistani state and its military establishment.

On 4 August 2026, the Pakistani authorities banned Daily Jeddojehad, Pakistan’s first and only socialist online daily, which since 2019 has provided independent reporting and political analysis in Urdu, Pashto and Persian. No formal explanation was provided for the ban. But there is little doubt about what provoked it: Jeddojehad‘s reporting and political analysis of the rapidly developing situation in Pakistani-administered Jammu and Kashmir (PaJK).

Two days later, on 6 August, personnel of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), the intelligence agency of the Pakistani military, raided the family home of Farooq Sulehria in an attempt to arrest him. Farooq was abroad at the time and therefore escaped arrest. His younger brother and two nephews, however, were taken into custody. The justification reportedly given by the ISI personnel was Farooq’s writings on Kashmir.

This is an outrageous act of political intimidation. An intelligence agency of the military has no legitimate authority to conduct such a raid, yet Pakistan’s military establishment has for decades operated with a degree of impunity that places it effectively above civilian law.

The repression has not been confined to Farooq Sulehria. Another Jeddojehad contributor, Mujib Akbar, was forcibly disappeared by state agencies. Mujib, who hails from Rawalakot in Jammu and Kashmir and is an MPhil scholar, was illegally detained and his whereabouts were concealed for four days. Importantly, this detention was not carried out by the ISI, but by other state agencies. He was released only after Jeddojehad launched a social-media campaign demanding information about his whereabouts and his release.

The case of Mujib Akbar demonstrates the breadth of the repression. The state is not merely attempting to silence a publication; it is intimidating, detaining and disappearing those who contribute to an alternative political and journalistic narrative. That Mujib was recovered only after a public campaign also underscores the importance of solidarity and public pressure in confronting such abuses.

The attack on Jeddojehad must be understood in the context of the mass uprising that has shaken Pakistani-administered Jammu and Kashmir since 5 June. The movement, led by the Joint Awami Action Committee (JAAC), has raised demands concerning democratic rights, governance, economic hardship and the manipulation of elections. The response of the state has been brutal, with dozens of people killed by state violence.

In this situation, Jeddojehad has played a particularly important role. With the authorities imposing an extensive internet shutdown in PaJK and much of the mainstream Pakistani media either remaining silent or reproducing the official narrative, Jeddojehad became one of the few sources providing sustained and independent information about the movement and the repression accompanying it.

The ban is therefore not simply an attack on one publication. It is an attempt to silence an important source of information about a popular mobilisation that the Pakistani establishment does not want the wider public to see.

The repression has also extended to other journalists and media organisations. On the same day that Jeddojehad was banned, Pakistan prohibited Al Jazeera from operating in the country, following its critical reporting on the July elections in PaJK. Journalist and YouTuber Danish Irshad has been placed on Pakistan’s notorious Fourth Schedule, subjecting him to surveillance and restrictions, after reporting extensively on PaJK. International journalists have simultaneously been confronted with new restrictions requiring permission to report outside Islamabad, Lahore and Karachi and threatening the withdrawal of accreditation for activities deemed contrary to Pakistan’s “ideology, sovereignty, security, or public order”.

The pattern is unmistakable. The Pakistani establishment is tightening its control over information precisely when its political narrative is being challenged on the ground.

The repression of Daily Jeddojehad is particularly significant because it is a socialist publication. Farooq Sulehria and Harris Qadeer has consistently combined journalism with political analysis rooted in the perspective of the working class, oppressed peoples and democratic movements. Jeddojehad has not confined itself to reporting humanitarian suffering. It has sought to understand the political structures and power relations underlying the conflicts and crises confronting Pakistan and the region. That is precisely why it is being targeted.

The Pakistani military establishment has long attempted to monopolise the political discourse on Jammu and Kashmir, presenting the Kashmir question through the prism of state nationalism and geopolitical rivalry with India. Jeddojehad has challenged this framework by giving space to the democratic and popular aspirations of the people of Pakistani-administered Jammu and Kashmir and by reporting on their struggles against both political manipulation and state repression.

The present crackdown must therefore be opposed as part of the wider struggle against military authoritarianism, censorship and the suppression of democratic and popular movements in Pakistan.

We are particularly concerned that Farooq Sulehria is now effectively prevented from returning to Pakistan, where he teaches at Beaconhouse National University in Lahore. His co-editor Harris Qadeer has been forced into hiding. No journalist, teacher or political activist should have to remain outside their own country because an intelligence agency is seeking to arrest them for their writings.

We demand:

• The immediate lifting of the ban on Daily Jeddojehad.
• An end to the persecution and intimidation of Farooq Sulehria and Harris Qadeer.
• An end to the harassment and surveillance of journalists covering the situation in Pakistani-administered Jammu and Kashmir.
• The restoration of the right of journalists, including international correspondents, to report freely throughout Pakistan.
• An end to the censorship and military interference in the media.
• An end to the repression of the popular movement in Pakistani-administered Jammu and Kashmir and respect for the democratic rights of its people.

Alternative Viewpoint stands firmly with Farooq Sulehria, Harris Qadeer, Mujib Akbar, Daily Jeddojehad and all those fighting for freedom of expression, democratic rights and social justice in Pakistan and Pakistani-administered Jammu and Kashmir.

Silencing Jeddojehad will not silence the struggle.

Solidarity with Farooq Sulehria, Harris Qadeer, Mujib Akbar and Daily Jeddojehad!

Lift the ban! End the repression!

Based on information from Revista Movimento.