Bloggers/Vloggers being bullied to make content on Pakistani version of "Kashmir" issue
By Shujauddin Qureshi
After Indian Prime Minister Modi's bomb-shell decision regarding Indian-held-Kashmir on August 5 revoking the occupied Kashmir's special autonomy through a rushed presidential decree, the social media zealots have become so active and have started making the lives of the independent social media activists miserable.
The so-called Pakistani Jihadi trollers (who often hide their identities on social media) have started bullying and forcing prominent bloggers and vloggers and personalities to make pro-Kashmir blogs or issue statements. When some ignored their unjustified demands, they started their ugly tactics of abusing and threatening them through social media.
The first such incident I noticed on social when a prominent V-Loger Irfan Junejo with 779,167 subscribers on YouTube and 52.8K followers on Twitter twitted and made a video regarding such intimations by "aliens".
I make it clear here that I did not know the young Video Youtuber Junejo (maybe because I am seldom interested in his topics) and I was not a follower of Junejo previously, but after that incident, I started following him on both Twitter and Youtube.
Junejo has also made a special video on Youtube on this topic and said he will not make any video on Kashmir under any duress. It is a pity that social media platforms are abused by religious zealots and extremist elements as they want to spread their point of view by hook and crook. Otherwise, they use abusive language and adopt immoral and illegal tactics to force the person to do so. It is quite difficult to find who else has been bullied or forced to make their posts or videos on the Pakistani version of the Kashmir issue, but I am confident that their numbers must be in the hundreds.
"It was not a request, but a proper bullying", he states in his video: https://youtu.be/XDfP8Xcf-P4. Interestingly, his following increased after such posts despite the fact the zealots had started unfollowing him. He twitted on August 18 "Cancellation se pehle - 47.4K followers. After cancellation - 47.9K followers."
The second prominent V-Logger and social media activist was Junaid Akram, whom I follow on FaceBook and YouTube because I like the topics he often touches on. I am also fond of libraries and books and he promotes libraries in Karachi. I am also his admirer because of his straightforwardness and candid opinions on the critical issues of society. On his YouTube channel, he has 292,862 subscribers and 820,727 people like his Face Book page "Khalli Kara👦!".
He has also made a video in the Stories on Facebook (which often expires after 24 hours) complaining about bullying by the trollers. According to him they were also compelling him to make videos on Kashmir according to their (former's) opinions. He has given those trollers a befitting reply in the video and I hope they were using Burnol ointment on their scars.
The third victim of this smear campaign by zealots was not other than Malala Yousufzai, the Nobel Peace Award laureate as usual, who has been receiving such types of criticism from those who often doubt his love to Pakistan. I just quote a twit by his father Ziauddin Yousufzai, who replied in a previous twit by TV anchor Irshad Bhatti. The so-called journalist was so uninformed that he asked on Twitter why Malala has not issued a statement in support of Kashmiri people who suffer because of the curfew in the Indian-held Kashmir. This ignorant journalist with his doubtful credentials had received an apt reply by her father asking the former to read Malala's 8th August statement on Kashmir.
Ends
