YouTube has started to remove hundreds of videos that feature Anwar al Awlaki, the radical American-born cleric based in Yemen who has been linked to several terrorist plots against the US and the UK, the London Telegraph reported Wednesday.
American and British officials have been pressuring the website to take down the videos, fearing that al Awlaki’s internet preaching radicalizes Muslims.
“Hundreds of al-Awlaki videos are currently available on YouTube, with a combined total of over 3.5 million views,” New York Rep. Anthony Weiner said in an open letter sent last week to YouTube CEO Chad Hurley. “In these videos, al-Awlaki preaches violence against Americans and actions back up his online message.”
During a speech last week at the Brookings Institution in Washington, DC, the UK’s security minister Baroness Neville-Jones called on President Barack Obama’s administration to “take down this hateful material” in cases where servers were based in the US, the Telegraph said.
Specifically referring to al Awlaki’s videos, she said websites that “incite cold-blooded murder” would “categorically not be allowed in the UK.”
British officials have been increasing the pressure on YouTube after a student, Roshonara Choudhry, 21, stabbed and nearly killed a Member of Parliament, Stephen Timms, in May. Choudhry was allegedly radicalized by watching al Awlaki’s sermons on YouTube. She was handed a life sentence on Wednesday.
US Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano has also said Friday’s thwarted bomb package plot against the US bore all the hallmarks of al Awlaki, who was accused of plotting last year’s failed Christmas Day bombing.
On Friday, two explosive-laden US-bound packages were intercepted at UPS and FedEx facilities in the UK and Dubai. The bombs were hidden in printer toner cartridges and were powerful enough to have brought down an aircraft, officials said.