https://arab.news/jm9s6
- Move came 5 days after he created them
- Choudary, featured in Arab News’ Preachers of Hate series, is linked to known terrorists
LONDON: Notorious British hate preacher Anjem Choudary, 54, has had his Facebook and Twitter accounts shut down just five days after he joined the social networks.
Twitter said Choudary’s page was “permanently suspended for violating the rules” of its violent organizations policy.
Choudary, who is featured in Arab News’ Preachers of Hate series, recently had his ban on public speaking lifted. The ban had been imposed on him as one of the conditions of his early release from prison.
He was sentenced to five and a half years behind bars in 2016 for inviting support for Daesh, but served just half that time.
The rest of the sentence was spent outside prison but under strict license conditions, including curbs to his internet and phone usage, a ban on public speaking, and a ban on contacting certain people without approval.
Those conditions came to an end on July 18 and he was legally allowed to set up an online presence, though the social networks have no obligation to allow him on their platforms.
Before he was jailed, Choudary earned notoriety as an outspoken extremist with a significant following.
Among his followers was the killer of British soldier Lee Rigby, who was beheaded in a London street, and Siddhartha Dhar, who joined Daesh in 2014 reportedly as an “executioner.”