ISLAMABAD (The Thursday Times) — Defence Minister Khawaja Asif has called the YouTubers who back Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf from abroad the party’s “biggest enemies”, accusing them of earning dollars from its troubles while the party at home pays the price for what they post.
In a post in Urdu on X on Wednesday evening, Asif described them as “freeloading YouTubers sitting abroad” who are “all sitting safely, printing money”.
“And in Pakistan, PTI pays the price for the negative effects of their posts,” he wrote. “I had never seen people earning dollars from the ordeal of the very person whose support they swear by.”
The remark appeared to be aimed at the party’s founder, Imran Khan, whose legal battles have been a staple of PTI-aligned channels run from outside the country.
Asif said the same commentators had done well whichever way PTI’s fortunes went. “When PTI was in government it was Eid for them then too. Today PTI is not in government, and their pockets are still being lined as before,” he wrote, adding that “these YouTubers have made fools of the whole party”.
A senior leader of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz, Asif has repeatedly accused overseas social media accounts of spreading propaganda against the state and the army. Several of the best-known PTI-supporting YouTubers, including former journalists and retired officers, now broadcast from the United Kingdom, the United States and elsewhere.∎
