Spitting hatred on YouTube: Thousands of terror videos urging British Muslims to maim and kill can be found within seconds online
Daily Mail 27 May 2013, By Arthur Martin
- Hate lectures praising murder of drummer Lee Rigby in Woolwich accessible on YouTube
- Mail investigation found footage of beheadings, Al Qaeda training videos and hate sermons online
- Calls for censorship as YouTube's guidelines to block dangerous activities, Islamist propaganda videos still easy to access
Thousands of vile terror videos urging British Muslims to maim and kill can still be found on the internet within seconds. An investigation by the Mail has found an alarming number of Al Qaeda training videos and hate-filled sermons still being screened on the hugely popular film sharing website YouTube.
This is despite YouTube’s claims that it has ‘community guidelines’ that prohibit ‘dangerous or illegal activities such as bomb making, hate speech and incitement to commit violent acts’ and only accepts ‘religious’ films.
Eric Schmidt, executive chairman of YouTube-owner Google, has said he would allow extremist websites to continue being listed because he believes it can help police track potential terrorists.
‘We cannot prima facie identify evil and take it down,’ he said at the Hay literary festival. ‘We have taken the decision that information, if it’s legal, even if it’s despicable, will be indexed.’
He went on to argue that extremists are usually possible to detect through their internet activity and that their online presence can sometimes help.
Extremists are not clever enough not to be found out,’ he added. ‘They leave a digital trail the police can follow.’
On Saturday the Mail reported how, within hours of Lee Rigby’s execution, vile messages praising the attack began appearing online.
Police are still investigating if the soldier’s two killers were indoctrinated by videos.
But, despite the pledges by major search engines that they do pull incendiary videos from their sites, hundreds of Islamist propaganda videos can easily be found by impressionable young British Muslim men through simple internet searches.
One hour-long clip tells every Muslim that it is their duty to wage jihad to follow ‘Allah’s path’. Another video uploaded by extremist terror sect Al-Shabaab shows a fighter, wearing a balaclava, giving a demonstration of how to assemble an AK47 assault rifle. Al-Shabaab is the Islamic terror group in Somalia which Woolwich killer Michael Adebolajo was attempting to join last year.
A search for Al-Shabaab on YouTube produces 65,000 results. The popular site also has 108 videos of hate preacher Anjem Choudary.
In his bile-filled rants he urges Muslims to wage jihad while in others he tells his fanatics to take advantage of the welfare state.
Videos of Adebolajo at extremist rallies can also be found. One shows him alongside Choudary.
The repulsive martyrdom video of 7/7 bomber Mohammad Sidique Khan is still on YouTube.
In another clip, hate preacher Omar Bakri Mohammed praises Adebolajo and describes him as ‘courageous’.
A video of Anwar al-Awlaki, the dead ideological leader of Al Qaeda, describing how ‘Islam is spread by the sword’ can also be found.
Elsewhere on the internet, a magazine written by the Taliban can be found using the Google search engine.
The first edition of the magazine, published two weeks ago, calls for extremists in Britain to kill Malala Yousafzai, the 15-year-old Pakistani girl shot by the Taliban who now lives in this country.
Terrorism expert Neil Doyle, who helped the Mail with the investigation, said: ‘These videos are surprisingly easy to find.
‘I had no trouble finding lots of disturbing footage. There are numerous videos of beheadings, executions and hate sermons which anyone could find.’
YouTube says material that is ‘purely of a religious nature’ remains online.
However, the company admits that it relies on members of the public to ‘flag up’ incendiary material before it takes action.
A YouTube spokesman said: ‘YouTube has community guidelines that prohibit dangerous or illegal activities such as bomb-making, hate speech and incitement to commit violent acts, and we have removed a significant number of videos under these policies.
‘These are difficult issues and material that is brought to our attention is reviewed carefully.
'We will continue to remove all content that incites violence according to our policies. Material of a purely religious nature will remain on the site.’
Labour MP Paul Flynn, who has led calls for internet giants to do more to tackle the problem, said the ‘case for controls to be imposed is a powerful one.’
He said: ‘There is so much stuff on the internet which is damaging. It’s there because we have been much too permissive.
‘I’m generally against censorship, but the events of the past few days shows that people who are preaching terrorism should be restricted from putting this on the internet.
‘The internet is anarchic. There are no natural controls. People are greatly influenced by what they see.
There is a whole encyclopaedia of hate out there which is having a very bad effect. There is a strong case for forbidding anything that is likely to incite hatred.’
The Woolwich attack lead to a weekend of clashes as right-wing extremists protested following the death of Drummer Lee Rigby.
Police maintained a heavy presence in Newcastle, after around 2,000 English Defence League (EDL) supporters marched through the city and came face to face with anti-fascist campaigners who had organised their own rally.
Although the demonstrations from both sides were kept largely under control there were a number of small outbreaks of violence and 24 arrests were made.
Three people had been arrested prior to the Newcastle protest on Saturday.
In London, the Metropolitan police mobilised more than 1,000 officers, including armed response units and extra patrols who were ready to attend any potential trouble spots.
Tell mam, a hotline for recording Islamophobic crimes said there had been 83 new reports of violent threats reported by Muslims to its helpline, compared with the four to eight calls it normally receives a day.
The English Defence League held a rally of its followers in the streets of Woolwich on the night of the killing, and mosques have been targeted by far-right extremists around the country.
Right-wing extremists including the English Defence League, said they would be holding demonstrations over the coming weeks.
Fiyaz Mughal, Co-ordinator of Tell MAMA and Director of Faith Matters said: 'We are calling on police and politicians to do more to tackle this shameful wave of fear and prejudice.
'From the internet, to the workplace, the street and even houses of worship, too often Muslim women and men are becoming the target of vicious, sometimes violent, abuse.'
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