Instagram Banned Account 'Fighting For Palestine’

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Shaun King pictured in 2017. | Supply: Karen Ducey / Getty

Shaun King’s 6 million followers on Instagram (IG) awakened on Christmas morning to search out the activist’s account had been banned and deactivated by the photo- and video-based social media platform.

In a subsequent Fb submit, King defined that “Instagram has banned me for preventing for Palestine, and talking up for the human rights and dignity of Palestinians.”

King has devoted his IG in latest months to documenting the plight of Palestinians amid the battle in Gaza. IG banning King got here as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed his nation’s army is “not stopping” assaults on areas the place Palestinians have been making an attempt to hunt refuge from violence.

It was unclear what precisely prompted IG’s mother or father firm Meta to ban King’s account there whereas protecting his Fb account energetic. Fb can also be owned and operated by Meta.

An e mail despatched by NewsOne to Meta requesting remark was not instantly returned.

Within the Fb submit, King accused Israel of “genocide” and stated he had been utilizing his IG account to assist present the world the atrocities confronted by Palestinians who had been additionally utilizing their accounts to share the unspeakable imagery of loss of life and accidents, together with these of youngsters.

Males recuperate the physique of a sufferer killed within the aftermath of an in a single day Israeli strike at al-Maghazi refugee camp on December 25, 2023, amid ongoing battles between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas. | Supply: MAHMUD HAMS / Getty

“My aim and hope was to at all times be a canopy for Palestinians in Gaza who merely can not afford to lose their accounts,” King wrote on Fb early Monday morning. “They’re documenting their very own genocide. And our working concept was that I might go as arduous as humanly doable to offer a canopy for everyone else there in Gaza and the West Financial institution. Doing so was my honor. I communicate day by day to 100+ Palestinians in Gaza and the West Financial institution and have grown to like them like my circle of relatives.⁣”

King urged that his IG account being banned would be the begin of comparable motion towatd the very individuals he stated he’s making an attempt to assist.

“Now my concern is that Meta might come for Palestinians now much more than they already are,” King added.

See King’s full Fb submit beneath:

The identical video was shared from one other IG account with a written message encouraging individuals to “go tougher for Palestine than ever earlier than.”

Latest estimates put the loss of life toll at greater than 20,000 Palestinians because the militant Hamas group launched an assault on Israel on Oct. 7.

“The deaths, amounting to just about 1% of the territory’s prewar inhabitants, are only one measure of the devastation wrought by the battle that over 11 weeks has displaced almost 85% of Gaza’s individuals and leveled huge swaths of the tiny coastal enclave,” CBS Information reported.

King, who has for years been dogged by allegations of on-line fundraising scams, is amongst a rising variety of Black Individuals who’re exhibiting solidarity with the Palestinian individuals, whose experiences within the face of terror have been likened to the Black expertise within the U.S.

The Motion for Black Lives (M4BL) has addressed the spiraling humanitarian disaster in Gaza by not solely calling for the violence to finish in no unsure phrases but in addition calling out the function the U.S. is and has been enjoying within the Center East for many years.

Condemning “the almost century-long genocidal occupation of Palestine by the right-wing Israeli authorities,” M4BL demanded a ceasefire.

In a latest dialog with NewsOne, minister, activist and scholar Nyle Fort supplied a nuanced rationalization of the long-reciprocated solidarity between Palestinian individuals and Black individuals in america regardless of the American authorities’s longstanding help of Israel.

“African-descendant individuals have a protracted custom of standing on the aspect of the oppressed,” Fort stated whereas emphasizing how that sort of shared trauma can bond Black of us with the Palestinian individuals.

“Black individuals, who’ve been on the underside of American democracy, who’ve exactly recognized what democracy is as a result of we all know what democracy just isn’t … we all know that each life is treasured,” Fort concluded. “In order we study increasingly concerning the political scenario, let’s by no means lose sight of what that is actually about: It’s about defending, defending, affirming the sweetness and the humanity of Palestinian individuals and of all individuals.”