Brasília: Brazil’s Supreme Court threatened on Wednesday to suspend social media platform X unless billionaire owner Elon Musk names a new legal representative for the company within 24 hours.
The decision escalates a months-long feud between Musk and Brazilian Supreme Court Judge Alexandre de Moraes, who has previously ordered the suspension of dozens of accounts on X for allegedly spreading disinformation.
In April, Moraes ordered an investigation of Musk, accusing him of reactivating some banned accounts.
Musk and other critics accuse Moraes of stifling free speech.
In an order made public Wednesday, Moraes ordered Musk “to appoint the company’s new legal representative in Brazil within 24 hours.”
“In the event of non-compliance with the order, the decision provides for the suspension of the social network’s activities in Brazil,” it said.
In response, Musk posted on X that “this ‘judge’ has repeatedly broken the laws he has sworn to uphold.”
Musk shut X’s business operations in Brazil this month, claiming the judge had threatened the company’s previous legal representative with arrest to force compliance with “censorship orders.”
Brazilian users have meanwhile continued to be able to access the social media site formerly known as Twitter.
Moraes, who also presides over Brazil’s Superior Electoral Tribunal, has spearheaded a battle against disinformation in South America’s largest nation, clashing with Musk along the way.
Several of the X accounts he ordered suspended belonged to supporters of Brazil’s former far-right president Jair Bolsonaro, who tried to discredit the voting system in the 2022 election, which he lost.
Musk previously said that if X had complied with Moraes’s orders, “there was no way we could explain our actions without being ashamed.”
Musk is also the subject of a separate judicial investigation into an alleged scheme where public money was used to orchestrate disinformation campaigns in favor of Bolsonaro and those close to him.
Brazil judge threatens to suspend X within 24 hours
https://arab.news/9x2ne
Brazil judge threatens to suspend X within 24 hours
- The decision escalates a months-long feud between Musk and Brazilian Supreme Court Judge Alexandre de Moraes
- In April, Moraes ordered an investigation of Musk, accusing him of reactivating some banned accounts
Reform UK London mayoral candidate criticized over burqa stop-and-search remarks
- Laila Cunningham claimed parts of British capital felt culturally different due to the visibility of Muslim communities
LONDON: The newly announced London mayoral candidate for the right-wing British party Reform UK faced criticism on Friday following comments suggesting women wearing the burqa should be subject to police stop-and-search, The Guardian newspaper reported.
Speaking on a podcast, Laila Cunningham said that in an “open society” people should not cover their faces, adding that it “has to be assumed” those who do so are doing it “for a criminal reason.”
She also argued that London should have “one civic culture” which “should be British,” claiming parts of the British capital felt culturally different due to the visibility of Muslim communities.
The remarks prompted concern from Muslim organizations, with Shaista Gohir, chief executive of the Muslim Women’s Network UK, describing the comments as “dangerous” and a “dog whistle” that could further alienate Muslim women.
She warned they risked emboldening abuse, adding: “The number of Muslim women who wear the burqa in this country is tiny, and yet this is what has been chosen as a focus.”
Gohir said her organisation had recently seen a rise in threatening and Islamophobic correspondence, arguing that Cunningham’s comments were “sending a message to Muslims that they do not belong.”
Afzal Khan, a Labour MP based in Manchester, called Cunningham’s comments a “deliberate and cynical ploy”, adding it was “about divisive ideas being pumped into the society deliberately for electoral benefits.”
London Mayor Sadiq Khan also criticized attempts to stoke division, saying that the role of mayor was to bring communities together.
“Almost without argument, our city is the greatest city in the world because of our diversity,” he said, adding that freedom of religion and expression were “quintessentially British rights.”
Cunningham, a former Crown Prosecution Service prosecutor and British-born Muslim, was confirmed as Reform UK’s London mayoral candidate last week.
The issue of face coverings has previously sparked internal debate within Reform, with senior figures having distanced the party from earlier calls for a burqa ban.
