Belgian far-right Schild & Vrienden suspended from Twitter

Belgian far-right Schild & Vrienden suspended from Twitter

The Twitter account of the far-right student organisation Schild en Vrienden was suspended, along with those of nearly 70 similar organisations and individuals.

In a statement to NBC News, the network said it did so in response to these accounts of white nationalists because they "violated the policy on violent extremism.

For Dries Van Langenhove, MP for Vlaams Belang and founder of the group, it was an attempt to silence with a critical view of immigration.

"Today it's Schild en Vrienden, tomorrow it's up to the next one, until everyone with a migration-critical opinion has been silenced," Van Langenhove said on his personal Twitter account, which has not been banned.

Schild & Vrienden's account has been suspended because it violates the rules of the social network, which stipulate that users may not threaten or promote terrorism or violent extremism. It is not yet known which tweets posted by the extreme right-wing organization were the basis for the account suspension.

The other suspended accounts are also part of the so-called "identitarian movement" in Europe. These include that of Austrian Martin Sellner, leader of the Identitären Bewegung Österreich (IBÖ). Sellner's Facebook and Instagram accounts had already suffered a similar fate previously.

In recent months, the social network has also blocked several tweets from US President Donald Trump for "inappropriate behaviour" or "condoning violence".

The Brussels Times


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