YouTube takes down Dr Israr’s channel for ‘anti-Jews remarks’

LONDON: The biggest video sharing website, YouTube, has taken down the official web channel of Islamic scholar Dr Israr Ahmed over allegations of carrying anti-Semitic comments.

However, the followers of the Islamic scholar Dr Israr Ahmed expressed resentment over the initiative and claimed that he was a great scholar of Islam who never preached violence and urged his followers to get education and learn modern technology.

Dr Israr Ahmed’s channel had nearly three million subscribers and his lectures were admired by a large number of people.

YouTube sprang into action after the weekly newspaper Jewish Chronicle published several reports on Dr Israr Ahmed and claimed that British Pakistani Malik Faisal Akram, who took the Texas Synagogue hostage, was inspired by lectures of Dr Israr Ahmed.

In the latest report, Jewish Chronicle interviewed a Youtube whistleblower Khaled Hassan - a former content moderator for YouTube - who claimed that the technology giant ignored his requests when he flagged up the content, which carried hate towards Jews.

The interview was conducted by journalist David Rose, the former Daily Mail reporter, who is well known in Pakistani media and political circles and now works for Jewish Chronicle.

The Muslim YouTube moderator told the publication that he had repeatedly raised the issue of anti-Jews content on YouTube - including flagging Dr Ahmed - but his concerns were ignored. He added Dr Ahmed’s lectures carried comments, such as “Jew World Order” and described Jews as “cursed people” or “cursed race” who had conspired against Muslims for centuries, and that they were “followers of Satan, intent on destroying Islam”.

The Jewish Chronicle said that Malik Faisal Akram took four people hostage at gunpoint in a Texas synagogue in January after he had watched Israr Ahmed’s videos.

On Friday, YouTube said it has removed two channels of Dr Israr Ahmed.

YouTube said: “Upon review, we removed the channels belonging…. to Israr Ahmad for violating our hate speech policies, and a further eleven videos have been removed as either a result of this circumvention or for violating our Violent Extremism and hate speech policies.”

YouTube also removed Egyptian scholar Wagdy Ghoniem who said that those who had “collaborated” with Nato forces in Afghanistan deserved to be punished by the Taliban.