In September 2021, internationally designated Islamist cleric and convicted
ISIS supporter Anjem Choudary called for the release of Aafia Siddiqui....


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Tech & Terrorism: Choudary Uses Social Media To Call For Aafia Siddiqui’s
Release

(New York, N.Y.) — In September 2021, internationally designated Islamist
cleric and convicted ISIS supporter Anjem Choudarycalled
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federal prison. Urging allies to take up Siddiqui’s cause, Choudary wrote of 
“the obligation … to either free her physically or to ransom her or to
exchanger her.” On Saturday, Malik Faisal Akram took four people hostage in a
Texas synagogue, demanding the release of Siddiqui. Although it is unclear the
extent to which Choudary directly influenced Akram, Choudary againcalled
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 for Siddiqui’s release on Sunday in a blog post on his website and urged a
Twitter storm on her behalf.

 

By allowing extremists, like Choudary, and their followers to post their
rhetoric, social media platforms are providing a space for the radicalization
of other extremists—extremists who are willing to carry out the words preached
online. Choudary’s call for a Twitter campaign for Siddiqui has since spread to
YouTube and various other websites.

 

Choudary was released from prison on October 19, 2018, only halfway through
his sentence due to British probation rules that allow for early release after
the completion of half a sentence. The British government imposed several
restrictions on Choudary as part of his release. Several of those restrictions
expired in July 2021. Choudary subsequently opened accounts on multiple social
media platforms and began posting Islamist diatribes calling for the creation
of an Islamic caliphate ruled under sharia law. He continues to meet with
former associates to promote an Islamist agenda that had previously radicalized
more than 100 individuals.

 

On August 30, 2021, the Daily Mail reported
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Choudary had joined Pinterest, Snapchat, and TikTok. Choudary boasted to the
Daily Mail how easy it is to join social media and how he has “them all up my
sleeve” and is “signed up to all of them… I’m on everything.” By October 25,
2021, Telegram had deleted the fourth iteration of Choudary’s account.
Nonetheless, Choudary has boasted of creating new accounts, while his followers
continue to spread his messages to social media platforms from which he is
personally banned, such as Twitter. In Choudary’s October 15 Telegram essay on
Abu Hamza, for example, he called for a “Twitter storm” in support of the
cleric. An October 2021study
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Kingdom’s Community Security Trust found Choudary’s name mentioned more than
43,000 times on Twitter since the expiration of the government restrictions.

 

To read the Counter Extremism Project (CEP)’s  resource Anjem Choudary, please
clickhere <[link removed]>.

 

To read CEP’s resource Anjem Choudary’s Ties to Extremists, please click here
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To read CEP’s resource Aafia Siddiqui, please click here
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