PewDiePie released a video on Sunday calling for end to the movement.

By Meagan Flynn, The Washington Post | Updated: 30 April 2019 12:06 ISTShare on FacebookTweetShareEmailRedditComment

On the day a gunman killed 50 people at two mosques in the worst terrorist attack in New Zealand history, the shooter also ushered PewDiePie, one of YouTube’s biggest stars, onto an unwanted stage: The terrorist invoked his name.

“Remember lads, Subscribe to PewDiePie,” the shooter said during a live stream of the mass shooting last month.

The shooter was referring to a grass roots movement among PewDiePie’s fans to keep his YouTube channel in the No. 1 slot as an Indian channel threatened his top status. PewDiePie, whose real name is Felix Kjellberg and who has courted controversies involving racism in the past, immediately distanced himself from the terrorist, saying in a since-deleted tweet that he felt “absolutely sickened having my name uttered by this person.”

But until Sunday, he had otherwise remained silent about the entire episode, and about how the worldwide “Subscribe to PewDiePie” fan movement had in some cases been hijacked by those seeking to spread hate.

On Sunday, he released a YouTube video calling for an end to the “subscribe” movement and addressing the New Zealand shooting for the first time on his channel. His message comes just after the accused San Diego synagogue shooter, John Earnest, apparently published a manifesto online in which he also referenced PewDiePie.

“To have my name associated with something so unspeakably vile has affected me in more ways than I might have shown,” the 29-year-old Swedish YouTuber said of the New Zealand attacker. “I just didn’t want to address it right away, and I didn’t want to give the terrorist any more attention. I didn’t want to make it about me. Because I don’t think it has anything to do with me. To put it plainly, I didn’t want hate to win.

“It’s clear to me now,” he added, “the ‘Subscribe to PewDiePie’ movement should have ended then.”

With more than 95 million subscribers, Kjellberg long held claim to the title of YouTube’s most popular channel until recently. But as he promoted an anti-Semitic YouTube channel, produced videos that cracked dark jokes about anti-Semitism and Nazis and once yelled the n-word while playing a video game, critics raised alarms about his influence on the young and impressionable.

The “Subscribe to PewDiePie” movement evoked some of those same concerns – culminating, of course, with its invocation during the Christchurch massacre.

The grass roots effort started harmlessly enough last year, with viral videos and pranks all seeking to promote the channel as the Indian channel T-Series encroached on PewDiePie’s subscriber count. Before long it turned into a full-fledged, worldwide publicity battle for the title. A fellow YouTuber, Mr. Beast, bought billboard ads and radio and television spots to relentlessly promote PewDiePie. A cheerleader squad performed a routine carrying “Subscribe to PewDiePie” signs. People wore “Subscribe to PewDiePie” T-shirts and posted fliers advertising his channel on telephone poles.

But then it started to go awry.

“Something I learned – and hopefully it’s something you can understand – is when you have 90 million people riled up about something, you’re bound to get a few degenerates,” Kjellberg said Sunday.

First, there were the hackers. Some of them hacked printers, managing to spew “Subscribe to PewDiePie” messaging worldwide. Others hacked the Wall Street Journal, publishing a mock apology to PewDiePie, which the newspaper immediately deleted.

Then there were the vandals. In March, a week before the New Zealand shooting, “Subscribe to PewDiePie” appeared scrawled three times on a World War II memorial in Brooklyn.

“Just so disgusting, so disappointing to have my name and community dragged into that,” Kjellberg said Sunday. “I addressed it on Twitter. I disavowed it. We saw that it got removed and donated to the park. I hoped that was going to be it.”

But it wasn’t, of course.

Two weeks after the New Zealand terrorist invoked his name, Kjellberg uploaded a mock music video targeting T-Series that India’s high court found so offensive that it ordered it blocked within the country. The video was one of two “diss tracks” that Kjellberg created during the battle with T-Series over YouTube’s top slot. An Indian judge said a quick perusal of the videos revealed “repeated comments made which are abusive, vulgar and also racist in nature.”

On Sunday, Kjellberg said the videos were just “made in fun, ironic jest,” but also expressed regret, saying it’s “clearly not fun anymore” and has “clearly gone too far.” He said he would comply with the court order.

“This negative rhetoric is something I don’t agree with at all,” he said, “and I want that to stop, and to make it perfectly clear: No, I’m not racist. I don’t support any form of racist comments or hate towards anyone.”

Kjellberg came under fire in 2017 after the Wall Street Journal reported on nine inflammatory videos that, with a combined 23 million views, contained content seen as insensitive, racist and anti-Semitic. In one, two men laughed as they held a sign that said, “Death to all Jews.” In another, a man dressed as Jesus said, “Hitler did absolutely nothing wrong,” and in another Kjellberg threw out the “Sieg Heil” Nazi salute during a mock video. A neo-Nazi website, The Daily Stormer, endorsed his videos. Whether Kjellberg intended to be racist or was kidding, they wrote, “The effect is the same; it normalizes Nazism, and marginalizes our enemies,” as the New York Times reported.

Disney, which owned a firm that operated Kjellberg’s business, severed ties with Kjellberg over the videos the Journal unearthed. YouTube pulled a reality show series in which Kjellberg starred, TechCrunch reported.

At the time, Kjellberg disavowed hate groups in a statement as well.

“I think it’s important to say something and I want to make one thing clear: I am in no way supporting any kind of hateful attitudes,” he said in a statement posted to his Tumblr account in February 2017. “I make videos for my audience. I think of the content that I create as entertainment, and not a place for any serious political commentary. I know my audience understand that and that is why they come to my channel. Though this was not my intention, I understand that these jokes were ultimately offensive.”

On Sunday, Kjellberg rejected the idea that the “Subscribe to PewDiePie” movement had anything to do with politics, race or nationality, and said he hoped that gaining more followers will stop being simply about “beating another channel.”

While India grapples with the blacklisting of Masood Azhar in the United Nations Security Council, Pakistan has said that it is open to the listing of Jaish-e-Mohammed chief, as long as it was not related to the Pulwama terror attack. The comments were made by Pakistan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs Spokesperson Mohammad Faisal on a Pakistani TV show, Islamabad Views, on Sunday.

“(India should) give evidence that Masood Azhar had anything to do with the attack in Pulwama. If that is not the case, then we can discuss the listing. It is not a big issue,” Faisal said. Stating that the Pulwama attack was a separate issue, Faisal said that his country had said, several times, that India was trying to “suppress” the indigenous uprising in Jammu and Kashmir.

Faisal’s statement comes days after the United Kingdom said it was optimistic that Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) chief Masood Azhar will soon be declared a global terrorist by the United Nations even as it called for “verifiable” and “irreversible” action against terror groups by Pakistan. 

Last month, China put a technical hold on a fresh proposal to impose a ban on Azhar, the head of Pakistan-based JeM which claimed responsibility for the Pulwama attack. It was for the fourth time, China blocked Azhar’s listing.

“We are strong supporter of listing of Azhar. We hope there will be conclusion to the issue soon,” Asquith added.

The fresh proposal to designate Azhar under the 1267 Al Qaeda Sanctions Committee of the UN Security Council was moved by France, the UK and the US, in the wake of the Pulwama terror attack in which 40 CRPF personnel were killed.

Agencies

A ban on all face veils was proposed by MP Ashu Marasinghe at a recent meeting of Sri Lankan cabinet.

Exactly a week after the Easter Sunday suicide bombings killed 253 people in the island nation, Sri Lanka issued a Presidential decree banning all forms of face covers including Islamic garments such as burqa.

Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena approved the call for a ban on the face covering under an emergency law.

In a press release issued late on Sunday, the government said, “Any form of face covering that will hinder identification of a person is banned under emergency regulations.”

“The ban is to ensure national security…No one should obscure their faces to make identification difficult,” the statement added.

A ban on all face veils was proposed by MP Ashu Marasinghe at a recent meeting of Sri Lankan cabinet.

Marasinghe, a member of the United National Party, had also declared on Facebook that he was going to present a private member’s bill about the issue. He said that the garment is not “a traditional Muslim attire”.

Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe had advised the government to defer the matter until talks with Islamic clerics could be held.

The ban on face veils does not apply on hijab and chador as the two garments do not cover the face.

According to reports, the influential All Ceylon Jamiyyathul Ulama too had asked women to avoid wearing a burqa or niqab in order to help security forces.

Reports state that Muslims across the country are concerned about their safety. Many have stopped wearing the burqa.

Authorities in Sri Lanka said that a total of 106 suspects have been arrested in multiple raids carried out across the country since the 21 April blasts at three churches and three five-star hotels.

Police are continuing their search for other members of the National Thowheeth Jamaath (NTJ), the local terror outfit and splinter group of the Islamic State, which carried out the blast.

President Maithripala Sirisena said on Friday that over 130 suspects linked to the terror group have been operating in the country. Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe said Sri Lanka needs new laws to deal with threats posed by local terror outfits linked to ISIS.

The blasts also left at least 500 people injured in the serial bombings as well.R

Madrid, Apr 29 : The Spanish Socialist Party (PSOE) of Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has led in the Spanish election on Sunday when 95.60 percent of the votes have been counted, but will need to pact with other parties in order to form a government.
According to data published by the Spanish Interior Ministry with 95.60 percent of the votes counted, the PSOE won 28.72 percent of the votes to gain 122 seats in the 350-seat Spanish Congress.
It is 37 more than that in the June 2016 election when they won 22.63 percent of the vote and 85 seats.
The big loser of the night is the right wing People’s Party, who have seen their representation in Congress halved. The party led by Pablo Casado saw their vote share crash from 33.01 percent, which gave them 137 seats in June 2016, to 16.69 percent, just 65 seats.
Ciudadanos led by Albert Rivera has seen their share of the votes climb from 13.06 percent to 15.82 percent which is translated into 57 seats, 25 more than in the last election.
Sunday also saw the extreme right wing Vox party claim their first ever seats in the Congress. The party led by Santiago Abascal claimed 10.26 percent of the vote and won 24 seats, although it is below the 30-32 seats opinion polls had expected them to win.
The leftist party Unidos-Podemos also saw their share of the votes fall from 16.97 percent to 14.30 percent and the number of representatives reduced from 71 to 42.

The bodies of 15 people, including six children, were discovered at the site of a fierce overnight gun battle on the east coast of Sri Lanka, a military spokesman said on Saturday, six days after suicide bombers killed more than 250 people.

The shootout between troops and suspected Islamist militants erupted on Friday evening in Sainthamaruthu in Ampara, to the south of the town of Batticaloa, site of one of the Easter Sunday blasts at three churches and four luxury hotels.

A police spokesman said that three suspected suicide bombers were among the 15 dead after the shoot out.

One child caught in the crossfire was admitted to hospital.

Military spokesman Sumith Atapattu said in a statement that as troops headed towards the safe house three explosions were triggered and gunfire began.

“Troops retaliated and raided the safe house where a large cache of explosives had been stored,” he said in a statement.

He said the militants were suspected members of the domestic Islamist group National Towheed Jama’at (NTJ), which has been blamed for last Sunday’s attacks.

Bomb-making materials, dozens of gelignite sticks and thousands of metal balls were found in a search of a separate house in the same area, the military said.

The government has said nine homegrown, well-educated suicide bombers carried out the Easter Sunday attacks, eight of whom had been identified. One was a woman.

Police said on Friday they were trying to track down 140 people they believe have links with Islamic State, which claimed responsibility for the suicide bombings.

Police have detained at least 76 people, including foreigners from Syria and Egypt, in their investigations so far. Twenty were arrested in the past 24 hours alone, they said.

Authorities warn of more attacks 

Islamic State provided no evidence to back its claim that it was behind the attacks. If true, it would be one of the worst attacks carried out by the group outside Iraq and Syria.

The extremist group released a video on Tuesday showing eight men, all but one with their faces covered, standing under a black Islamic State flag and declaring their loyalty to its leader, Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi.

Muslims in Sri Lanka were urged to pray at home on Friday after the State Intelligence Services warned of possible car bomb attacks, amid fears of retaliatory violence.

Fears of retaliatory sectarian violence have already caused Muslim communities to flee their homes amid bomb scares, lockdowns and security sweeps.

The U.S. Embassy in Sri Lanka urged its citizens to avoid places of worship over the weekend after authorities reported there could be more attacks targeting religious centres.

Archbishop of Colombo Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith told reporters he had seen a leaked internal security document warning of further attacks on churches and there would be no Catholic masses this Sunday anywhere on the island.

Nearly 10,000 soldiers were deployed across the Indian Ocean island state to carry out searches and provide security for religious centres, the military said.

Authorities have so far focused their investigations on international links to two domestic groups they believe carried out the attacks, NTJ and Jammiyathul Millathu Ibrahim.

Intelligence failure 

Officials have acknowledged a major lapse in not widely sharing intelligence warnings from India of possible attacks.

President Maithripala Sirisena said on Friday that top defence and police chiefs had not shared information with him about the impending attacks.

He blamed Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe’s government for weakening the intelligence system by focusing on prosecution of military officers over alleged war crimes during a decades-long civil war with Tamil separatists that ended in 2009.

Sirisena fired Wickremesinghe in October over political differences, only to reinstate him weeks later under pressure from the Supreme Court.

Opposing factions aligned to Wickremesinghe and Sirisena have often refused to communicate with each other and blame any setbacks on their opponents, government sources say.

The Easter Sunday bombings shattered the relative calm that had existed in Buddhist-majority Sri Lanka since the civil war against mostly Hindu ethnic Tamil separatists ended.

Sri Lanka’s 22 million people include minority Christians, Muslims and Hindus. Until now, Christians had largely managed to avoid the worst of the island’s conflict and communal tensions.

Most of the victims were Sri Lankans, although authorities said at least 40 foreigners were also killed, many of them tourists sitting down to breakfast at top-end hotels when the bombers struck.

They included British, US, Australian, Turkish, Indian, Chinese, Danish, Dutch and Portuguese nationals. Britain warned its nationals this week to avoid Sri Lanka unless it was absolutely necessary.

Agencies

US President Donald Trump’s proposals on nuclear arms disarmament is “not serious,” a Kremlin spokesman said on Saturday.

Trump has ordered his administration to prepare a push for new arms-control agreements with Russia and China citing the cost of the 21st-century nuclear arms race, The Washington Post reported on Thursday citing administration officials.

“It would be ideal to clean up the whole world from the nuclear weapon…but on the other hand we would have been deprived of the deterrent factor,” Dmitry Peskov told reporters on the sidelines of a summit on China’s Belt and Road plan. “Don’t forget about the deterrent factor, about the deterrent parity,” he said.

Peskov also said Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping held substantial talks and exchanged views on Syria, Venezuela and Libya when they met on Friday.
 

Agencies

WELLINGTON : Britain’s Prince William on Friday met with about 160 survivors and the victims’ families at Al Noor Mosque, one of the two mosques attacked on March 15 in Christchurch, New Zealand.

Prince William said to survivors of the attacks, “Hate will fail to divide us.”

On the second day of the Duke of Cambridge’s visit to New Zealand, he visited Christchurch at Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s invitation to show the royal family’s support following the shootings which killed 50 people in two mosques.

“On the 15th of March, tragedy unfolded in this room. A terrorist attempted to sow division and hatred in a place that stands for togetherness and selflessness,” the prince said in his speech.

“When I woke up in London on the morning of the 15th of March, I could not believe the news, an act of unspeakable hate had unfolded in New Zealand, a country of peace. And it had unfolded in Christchurch, a city that has endured so much more than its fair share of hardship. When it was confirmed that 50 New Zealand Muslims had been killed, murdered while peacefully worshipping, again I just could not believe the news,” he told the gatherings.

He said New Zealand’s response to the shooting was an example to inspire the world.

“I have had reasons myself to reflect on grief and sudden pain, and loss in my own life. In my role I have often seen up close the sorrow of others in moments of tragedy, as I have today,” he said.

The prince also said Ardern showed extraordinary leadership of compassion and resolve.

Prince William went around the room to talk to individual families affected by the tragedy after his speech.

The visit, on behalf of the Queen, were heavily guarded by the armed police.

On Thursday, the Anzac Day, the Duke of Cambridge placed a wreath on the war memorial cenotaph in the Auckland Domain while attending Anzac Day services.

Fears of retaliatory sectarian violence have already caused Muslim communities to flee their homes amid bomb scares, lockdowns and security sweeps.

COLOMBO — Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena said on Friday police are looking for 140 people believed to have links with the Islamic State group, which has claimed responsibility for the Easter Sunday suicide bombings of churches and hotels.

Muslims in Sri Lanka were urged to pray at home on Friday and not attend mosques or churches after the State Intelligence Services warned of possible car bomb attacks, amid fears of retaliatory violence for the bombings that killed 253 people.

The US embassy in Sri Lanka also urged its citizens to avoid places of worship over the coming weekend after authorities reported there could be more attacks targeting religious centres.

Sri Lanka remains on edge after the suicide bombing attacks on three churches and four hotels that also wounded about 500 people.

Nearly 10,000 soldiers were being deployed across the Indian Ocean island state to carry out searches and provide security for religious centres, the military said on Friday.

Fears of retaliatory sectarian violence have already caused Muslim communities to flee their homes amid bomb scares, lockdowns and security sweeps.

The All Ceylon Jamiyathul Ullama, Sri Lanka’s main Islamic religious body, urged Muslims to conduct prayers at home on Friday in case “there is a need to protect family and properties”.

Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith also appealed to priests not to conduct mass at churches until further notice.

“Security is important,” he said.

Police have detained at least 76 people, including foreigners from Syria and Egypt, in their investigations so far.

Islamic State provided no evidence to back its claim that it was behind the attacks. If true, it would be one of the worst attacks carried out by the group outside Iraq and Syria.

The extremist group released a video on Tuesday showing eight men, all but one with their faces covered, standing under a black Islamic State flag and declaring their loyalty to its leader, Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi. 

Defence, police chief quit 

The Sri Lankan government said nine homegrown, well-educated suicide bombers carried out the attacks, eight of whom had been identified. One was a woman.

Sirisena told reporters on Friday some Sri Lankan youths had been involved with Islamic State since 2013. He said information uncovered so far suggested there were 140 people in Sri Lanka involved in Islamic State activities.

“Police are looking to arrest them,” Sirisena said.

Authorities have so far focused their investigations on international links to two domestic Islamist groups – National Thawheed Jama’ut and Jammiyathul Millathu Ibrahim – they believe carried out the attacks.

Government officials have acknowledged a major lapse in not widely sharing an intelligence warning from India before the attacks.

Sirisena said top defence and police chiefs had not shared information with him about the impending attacks. Defence Secretary Hemasiri Fernando resigned over the failure to prevent the attacks.

“The police chief said he will resign now,” Sirisena said.

He blamed Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe’s government for weakening the intelligence system by focusing on the prosecution of military officers over alleged war crimes during a decade-long civil war with Tamil separatists.

Sirisena fired Wickremesinghe in October over political differences, only to reinstate him weeks later under pressure from the Supreme Court.

Opposing factions aligned to Wickremesinghe and Sirisena have often refused to communicate with each other and blame any setbacks on their opponents, government sources say.

The Easter Sunday bombings shattered the relative calm that had existed in Buddhist-majority Sri Lanka since a civil war against mostly Hindu ethnic Tamil separatists ended 10 years ago.

Sri Lanka’s 22 million people include minority Christians, Muslims and Hindus. Until now, Christians had largely managed to avoid the worst of the island’s conflict and communal tensions.

Most of the victims were Sri Lankans, although authorities said at least 38 foreigners were also killed, many of them tourists sitting down to breakfast at top-end hotels when the bombers struck.

They included British, U.S., Australian, Turkish, Indian, Chinese, Danish, Dutch and Portuguese nationals. Britain warned its nationals on Thursday to avoid Sri Lanka unless it was absolutely necessary because there could be more attacks.

Agencies

Islamabad, Apr 15 (Xinhua) Police in Pakistan’s southern port city of Karachi have arrested five militants affiliated with proscribed organization Islamic State (IS) during a search operation, local reports said Monday.
The raid was conducted on an intelligence tip-off regarding the presence of the alleged militants in their hideout in Gulshan-e-Maymar area of the city, ARY News quoted local police as reporting.
Arms and ammunitions were also recovered from the five militants who were accused of radicalization and indoctrination of Pakistani youth by using social media platform.
The arrested suspects were shifted to some unknown location for investigations.
The raid came two days after IS claimed a deadly suicide attack in the country’s southwestern Balochistan province. Targeting a minority Shiite ethnic group, the explosion left over 20 people killed and scores of others injured.
A senior security official from Balochistan earlier told Xinhua that the IS recently announced its “revenge for defeat in Syria,” and authorities got a tip-off that Pakistan might be an easy target for the local militants returning back to their countries of origin from Syria after the defeat.
Security was beefed up across the country following Friday’s IS attack, and Monday’s raid is being taken as a timely act by the law enforcement agencies to foil the possible IS attacks in the future.

Move comes after Boeing CEO apologised for crash that killed 189 people last October.

More families of victims of the Lion Air crash in Indonesia are suing Boeing after its chief executive apologised and said a software update for the MAX 8 jet would prevent further disasters.

Family members and lawyers said on Monday that CEO Dennis Muilenburg’s comment last week related to an automated flight system was an admission that helps their cases.

The anti-stall system is suspected as a cause of the Lion Air crash in October and an Ethiopian Airlines crash in March that also involved a MAX 8 jet. The two crashes killed a total of 346 people.

At a news conference organised by Jakarta law firm Kailimang & Ponto, families of 11 Lion Air victims said they are joining dozens of other Indonesian families in filing lawsuits against Boeing. 

“Boeing’s CEO explicitly apologised to 346 passenger families,” said Merdian Agustin, whose husband died in the crash. “We hope this is good momentum to have compensation rights.”

Agustin, a mother of three, said that she and dozens of other families have not received 1.2 billion rupiah ($85,000) compensation they are entitled to in Indonesia because they refused to sign a “release and discharge” document that extinguishes their right to sue Lion Air, Boeing or their subsidiaries.

“We refused to sign such a document containing statements that are treating our loved ones like lost baggage,” said Agustin. “It’s ridiculous and hurts us.”

Boeing acknowledged that the sensor malfunctioned and Muilenburg said last week that a new software update would prevent future incidents.

“It’s our responsibility to eliminate this risk,” Muilenburg said in a video statement. “We own it, and we know how to do it.”

Lawyer Michael Indrajana said that since the crash, families in Indonesia have faced a complicated and painful process against Boeing and Lion Air in their battle to get compensation.

He said the Boeing CEO’s statement shows the airline is now acknowledging responsibility.

“No amount of money can bring their loved ones back,” he said. “We want to fight for the orphans, so they have the opportunity to get a better future.”

Boeing said last week that it will cut production of its troubled 737 Max airliner this month, underscoring the growing financial risk it faces the longer that its best-selling plane remains grounded after the two crashes. 

Aljazeera