Twitter and Facebook clamp down on social media accounts of armed, Colombian FARC rebels with $10million US bounty for drug trafficking, for 'inciting violence' against country's president
Twitter and Facebook have clamped down on the social media accounts of an armed group of Colombian rebels for 'inciting violence', a week on from the US Capitol riots.
The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia posted a video on January 13 featuring their president Iván Márquez wearing green army fatigues in the jungle.
The 65-year-old fugitive, also known as Luciano MarÃn, is surrounded by men with machine guns, and calling for the country's president Iván Duque Márquez to be overthrown.
Twitter accounts linked to the dissident group were suspended by the tech giant yesterday after complaints by Colombian police.
Facebook said it has also removed content from its platform.
The move comes amid a wider crackdown on social media accounts that have been accused of inciting violence.
Twitter and Facebook permanently locked the account of U.S. President Donald Trump last week, citing the risk of further violence following the storming of the Capitol by his supporters.
In August rewards of $10million each were offered by the US' Drug Enforcement Administration for the arrest of FARC's Márquez and Seuxis Hernández, also known as Jesús Santrich, who are accused of drug trafficking.
Scroll down for video
The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia posted a video on January 13 featuring their president Iván Márquez wearing green army fatigues in the jungle
Márquez, also known as Luciano MarÃn, is a fugitive after reneging on the historic 2016 peace deal he helped to negotiate
Twitter accounts linked to the dissident group were suspended by the tech giant after complaints by Colombian police that they were inciting violence
FARC's Iván Márquez, pictured during peace talks in 2016, has had a $10million bounty on his head from the US since last summer, over alleged drug trafficking
In 2019 the group released a video announcing they were reneging on the 2016 peace deal and taking arms back up, accusing the government of not keeping up their end
Colombian President Ivan Duque, pictured speaking during the opening of a regional counter-terrorism meeting at the police academy in Bogota, Colombia on January 20, is the target of the FARC rebel group who have called for his mandate to be revoked
The FARC group was founded in 1964 as a wing of the Communist Party but agreed to a historic peace-deal in 2016 before taking arms back up in 2019.
In the new video former FARC leader Iván Márquez, who negotiated the 2016 deal before reneging on it three years later becoming a fugitive, says: 'We are going for the revocation of Duque's mandate. If we unite, we can achieve it'.
In 2018 Iván Duque Márquez was elected Colombia's youngest president, as the candidate from the Democratic Centre Party.
The 44-year-old ran a campaign where he stood against the 2016 peace treaty with the guerilla group.
The Twitter accounts for @IvanMarquezFarc and @SMarquetalia, controlled by FARC dissidents who rejected a 2016 peace deal, now read: 'Account suspended. Twitter suspends accounts which violate the Twitter rules.'
The account @JSantrich_FARC, belonging to former FARC leader Jesus Santrich, has also been suspended.
Twitter was not immediately available to comment.
Facebook has recently removed content related to FARC dissidents as identified by its moderators, it told Reuters via WhatsApp.
'We will continue to take action in accordance with our community standards and dangerous organization policies,' a spokeswoman told Reuters.
The move by the tech giants comes a week after rioters stormed the US Capitol
General Jorge Luis Vargas, Colombia’s national police director, requested this week that social media firms block the FARC dissident accounts after a video was published of Marquez speaking alongside others armed with rifles as he criticized the government.
'They’re armed, they’re issuing messages calling for international terrorism. That’s why we have asked that they be blocked, in accordance with international law,' Vargas told journalists.
In 2019, Marquez and Santrich - former commanders of the demobilized Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia - appeared in a YouTube video announcing a new offensive, just three years after signing a peace deal with the government.
The 2016 peace deal ended the FARC’s role in a more than five-decade conflict which has left 260,000 dead and millions displaced.
Although the deal allowed around 13,000 former FARC members to demobilize, some leaders and combatants have abandoned it and taken up arms again.
Some 2,500 combatants make up FARC dissident groups, which are involved in drug trafficking and illegal mining, according to the government and the military.
FARC dissidents, as well as other armed groups such as the National Liberation Army , regularly use social media networks to publish messages.