Pro-Palestinian shooter game Fursan Al-Aqsa has been removed from Valve’s popular Steam storefront in the United Kingdom.
The game’s full title, Fursan Al-Aqsa: The Knights of the Al-Aqsa Mosque, was declared terrorist propaganda by the UK’s Counter Terrorism Internet Referral Unit. Now, any person in the United Kingdom who wishes to buy the shooter will stumble upon an “Oops, sorry” notice.
The effort to ban The Knights of the Al-Aqsa Mosque had been building for a few years now, with censorship orgs such as the ADL and the International Legal Forum (an Israeli advocacy group) pressuring lawmakers and Valve to remove the title from stores and even outright ban the sale or owning of the controversial shooter.
Earlier this year, we interviewed the developer, Nidal Nijm, on the efforts to censor his game. Since then, the game has continued to face restrictions in Australia and Germany as well as the recent ban in the United Kingdom this week.
Nijim pointed out the hypocrisy of being calling to censor his game in a recent interview with Memo, saying, “Why was everyone ok with the infamous mission ‘No Russian’ in Call of Duty Modern Warfare but they can’t tolerate my game? In my game, if you kill the hostages, unarmed soldiers, the mission fails. On Call of Duty you must kill civilians on the Airport to complete the mission.”
Meanwhile, in America, the representative from New York Ritchie Torres has called on Steam to remove The Knights of the Al-Aqsa Mosque from storefronts in America.
For now, though, you are still able to access The Knights of the Al-Aqsa Mosque on Steam if you reside in America.