Photo from Arkansas State Legislature page.
Arkansas State Sen. Jason Rapert posted a Facebook video Tuesday sharing that he was temporarily banned from using his Twitter account due to comments he posted about Muslims, reports Arkansas Times. Rapert also said he would hold legislative hearings in Little Rock on Twitter’s alleged bias against Christian conservatives.
According to his video, Twitter banned Rapert for 12 hours from sending tweets or retweets, following other users, or liking other tweets, in accordance with its hateful conduct policy.
According to Arkansas Times, Rapert seemed to express concern in a Facebook post over the high voting turnout of Muslims and the fact that several Muslim Americans had won office, asking, “Do you want them ruling everything in America?” The question accompanied an article which concludes, “If you don’t think they have an agenda to conform America to Islam, you really do need to pull your head out of the sand.”
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The backlash ensued. In response to criticism from former Democratic Congressional candidate Chintan Desai, Rapert tweeted the following:
@DecideonDesai it was not a group of Baptists, Jews or Mormons who hijacked planes and killed thousands of innocent people on 9/11/2001 – they were all radical Muslims. #Facts #History #RadicalIslam pic.twitter.com/wNuOfHlEiL
— Sen. Jason Rapert (@jasonrapert) December 2, 2018
After the heated Twitter exchange with Desai, Twitter got involved after receiving a complaint, according to Rapert.
“Islam is the only belief system I am aware of in the world that directs its adherents to kill anyone who refuses to convert to Islam or submit to Sharia Law,” Rapert claimed in the now-removed tweet.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) recently called on the Arkansas legislature to censure Rapert.
“Senator Rapert’s bigoted comments reflect dangerous ideologies of the past that should be repudiated, not promoted,” said CAIR Government Affairs Director Robert McCaw, according to THV11.
“Twitter joined with extremist activists and actually shut down access to one of my Twitter accounts,” said Rapert. “Friends, I’m not certain for how long we are going to be able to communicate across these mediums.”
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