Al Jazeera Website Becomes Inaccessible in Pakistan Following Government Criticism
Al Jazeera’s English-language website became inaccessible to many users across Pakistan on Monday, a day after the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting publicly accused the Qatar-based news network of biased coverage of the Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) elections.
The website could not be accessed through multiple internet connections in Pakistan, including desktop browsers such as Chrome and Firefox, as well as mobile internet services. Several users also reported experiencing similar issues on social media.
At the time of publication, neither the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) nor Al Jazeera had issued a public statement confirming the cause of the disruption or whether any official restriction had been imposed.
The apparent outage follows criticism from Pakistan’s Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, which on August 2 accused Al Jazeera of “selective reporting” during coverage of polling stations in Muzaffarabad amid the AJK elections.
In a post published on its official X account, the ministry alleged that the broadcaster relied on “carefully chosen timings and scripted statements from selected individuals” to present what it described as a misleading portrayal of the electoral process. The ministry further labeled the coverage as “yellow journalism” and claimed it aligned with the interests of external actors seeking to undermine the credibility of the elections.
Despite the timing of the website’s inaccessibility, no government authority has publicly confirmed that Al Jazeera has been blocked in Pakistan. The exact cause of the disruption remains unknown, and it could not be independently verified whether the issue affected all internet service providers nationwide or was limited to specific networks.
As of publication, Al Jazeera’s website remained inaccessible through several internet connections tested in Pakistan, including desktop and mobile networks. The cause and geographic scope of the disruption have not been independently established.
