Facebook Removes Pic of Syrian Rebel Smiling with Beheaded Christian

Facebook stumbled into the heated debate over Syrian intervention after it removed a graphic photo depicting a Syrian rebel holding the decapitated head of a Christian man over a grill. The social network suggests the image, which received more than 30,000 views and was shared 1,700 times, was removed for its disturbing content, but activists accuse Facebook of silencing opponents of involvement in the Syrian slaughter.

The Daily Mail originally reported on the atrocity in December 2012. The victim, Andrei Arbashe, 38, was beheaded by Islamic extremists after his brother had allegedly complained that the Syrian rebels were “behaving like bandits.”

The publication wrote that Arbashe’s “headless corpse was found by the side of the road, surrounded by hungry dogs.” The Daily Mail story does not contain the graphic photo, but the National Liberty Federation (NLF), a liberty-oriented non-profit organization, posted the image on its Facebook page. The NLF told supporters in a fundraising email that its Facebook page had also been suspended for 12 hours because of the post.

Alleging that Facebook had joined the “‘Establishment’ in promotion of war with Syria and the cover up of war crimes by the Syrian Rebels,” the NLF said, “They want to shut up us up.”

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