Twitter suspended the account of Somalia’s Al Qaeda-linked Shebab insurgents on Friday, days after they posted photographs of a French commando they killed and threatened to execute Kenyan hostages.
A message from Twitter on the English-language @HSMPress account read that it had ‘been suspended’, without elaborating.
However, Somali and Arabic language accounts of the Shebab continue to operate, and the extremists used their Arabic account to denounce the suspension as censorship. ‘This is new evidence of the freedom of expression in the West,’ the message read. On Wednesday the Shebab used the account to release a link to a video of several Kenyan hostages they said they will execute within three weeks if Nairobi’s government does not release prisoners held on terrorism charges.
Earlier this month they posted graphic photographs of a French soldier killed during a failed bid to release a French agent the Shebab had held for more than three years.
A message from Twitter on the English-language @HSMPress account read that it had ‘been suspended’, without elaborating.
However, Somali and Arabic language accounts of the Shebab continue to operate, and the extremists used their Arabic account to denounce the suspension as censorship. ‘This is new evidence of the freedom of expression in the West,’ the message read. On Wednesday the Shebab used the account to release a link to a video of several Kenyan hostages they said they will execute within three weeks if Nairobi’s government does not release prisoners held on terrorism charges.
Earlier this month they posted graphic photographs of a French soldier killed during a failed bid to release a French agent the Shebab had held for more than three years.