Fact-check: Barzakh episodes removed from YouTube globally amid content controversy?

A viral Facebook post alleges that the producers of the television series 'Barzakh' removed all six of its episodes from YouTube on August 9, following outrage from some social media accounts regarding its content.

The claim is misleading. The episodes have only been removed from YouTube in Pakistan.

Claim

On August 6, a Facebook user posted a short video claiming that after he shared a clip criticising the content of 'Barzakh', the show’s producers were forced to apologise and had since pulled the series from YouTube.

The post has been viewed 299,000 times and shared over 15,000 times.

Fact

The television series 'Barzakh' has only removed its episodes from YouTube in Pakistan, but it remains available for viewing on YouTube in other countries.

'Barzakh', starring Fawad Khan and Sanam Saeed, first aired in Pakistan in July.

Shailja Kejriwal, the show’s producer, confirmed to Geo Fact Check in a written response that the episodes were "removed only from YouTube Pakistan."

The Indian entertainment channel Zee Zindagi also announced on August 6 that it would be removing its popular series 'Barzakh' from YouTube Pakistan, effective August 9, due to the outcry over its content.

Geo Fact Check then contacted Abhishek Kumar, a senior fact-checker at Alt News, an independent fact-checking platform in India, who confirmed that all six episodes of the show remained accessible in India. Kumar also shared screenshots from YouTube to corroborate this.

Geo Fact Check further spoke to Atta Ansari, a journalist with the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation (NRK) in Oslo, Norway, and Atif Tauqeer, a Germany-based Pakistani poet. Both confirmed that the show was still available on YouTube in Norway and Germany.

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