Insurgents' Twitter account suspended
2013-01-25 16:02
Nairobi - The Twitter account of Somalia's al-Qaeda-linked Shabaab insurgents was suspended 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 the account had "been suspended", without
elaborating.
However, the Shabaab's Somali- and Arabic-language
accounts 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 Shabaab used the account to release a
link to a video of several Kenyan hostages they said they will execute within
three weeks if the Kenyan 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 whom the
Shebab had held for more than three years.
They later used Twitter to announce the hostage's
execution.
French Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault denounced the
publication of the photographs as a "particularly odious display”.
Twitter warns that accounts can be suspended if they violate
its rules, which include the publishing of "direct, specific threats of
violence against others", according to regulations posted on its website.
Users are also blocked if they use Twitter "for any
unlawful purposes or in furtherance of illegal activities".
Last year the Shabaab used the account - which was opened
in December 2011, and most recently had more than 20 000 followers - for a
series of exchanges with Kenya's army spokesperson, taunting the Kenyans after
they invaded southern Somalia to attack the Islamists.
Shabaab fighters are on the back foot in Somalia, reeling
from a string of losses as they battle a 17 000-strong African Union force as
well as Ethiopian troops and Somali forces.
The Shabaab would use their account to goad Kenya's army
spokesperson Emmanuel Chirchir, calling the Kenyan military "inexperienced
boys".
And, after Chirchir warned that herds of donkeys were a
potential target - since they were viewed as Shebab convoys - the Islamists
retorted that Kenya's "eccentric battle strategy has got animal rights
groups quite concerned".
In January 2012, during a live web chat platform that the
US state department used to engage with international media, Washington's
senior advisor for innovation Alec Ross said terrorist organisations should be
"dismantled and destroyed".
"And so for me to think about whether they should
have the right to use Twitter or not, I go to a more fundamental question,
which is: Do they have the right to exist or not? And my answer to that is no... Shabaab and other institutions that are purveyors of terror are going to get
absolutely no sympathy from me, and they certainly aren't going to see me
advocate for their rights," Ross said.
