Pro-Palestinian game banned by Counter Terror unit

Let’s get two things straight, and one thing gay: Killing someone is generally frowned upon as it should, and governments restricting only very specific types of “artistic” endeavors are quite annoying. Honestly, I don’t have a third thing here that is gay, I just wanted to make it light-hearted before I have to talk about something serious. As you might have seen, given that Etsy has decided to stop the sale of certain things (which it has the right to do) and every news source seems to have an opinion on it, including your weird uncle’s Facebook, there is another chapter in the Israeli-Palastinian conflict.

We managed a year without talking about it here, however, a recent game on Steam has courted the ire of the UK’s Counter Terrorism Internet Referral Unit (CTIRU). First-person shooter Fursan al-Aqsa: The Knights of the Al-Aqsa Mosque describes itself as “[a] FPS/TPS Game which addresses the Israel x Palestine conflict from a Palestinian perspective. The Palestinian Max Payne on Steroids. Most BASED game of all times!!! [sic].” Parsing what is a teenager’s vocabulary, Fursan al-Aqsa is a very pro-Palestinian game, as you might guess.

As first reported by 404, Valve has removed Fursan al-Aqsa from its storefront in the UK after a request was sent to solo developer Nidal Nijm Games by the CTIRU. In an email to Nidal Nijm Games, a Valve representative said, “We’ve received a request from authorities in the UK to block the game and have applied such country restrictions.” When the developer replied to Steam (according to 404), he commented that his game is no different from Call of Duty, and asked if there were any specific details.

The Valve representative said to Nidal, “We were contacted by the Counter Terrorism Command of the United Kingdom, specifically the Counter Terrorism Internet Referral Unit (CTIRU). As with any authority for a region [that] oversees and governs what content can be made available, we have to comply with their requests. Unfortunately, I don’t have a contact available to refer you to.”

A spokesperson for the Counter Terrorism Command said to 404: “The CTIRU works closely with a range of technology, social media[,] and online service providers, but we do not comment on specific content or any communication we may have with specific platforms or providers.” However, when speaking about the region block with 404, Nijm said, “The region lock of my game in the UK was clearly due to political reasons (they are accusing my game of being ‘terrorist’ propaganda).” He also stated he is “forever grateful to Valve for allowing the publishing of my game on Steam in the first place,” and that he understands Valve’s need to comply with local laws.

Without going into a full editorial, or quoting Nidal’s more fervent quotes, I think the problem with this news is that a lot of people are taking this as silencing a pro-Palestinian game. I’m trying to avoid saying my opinion on either side, but I do have an opinion on banning a game (a very crude and poor-taste one) without giving a clear reason, supposedly. When banning anything, especially something in the creative fields such as games, books, movies, and such (which shouldn’t be happening in the first place), there needs to be a clear line so creatives know when and where they are stepping over it.

If you just read headlines on this, it suggests that the game is banned because of its pro-Palestinian message, but no one is saying otherwise. Which in turn paints the CTIRU in an awful light. Nidal says that his game is no different from Call of Duty, and artistically I’d have to agree. The artists behind Call of Duty who model and do all the work on the guns, characters, and such do a great job, but as a game Call of Duty isn’t artistic.

So the line on artistry is being drawn by a Counter-Terrorism unit, which is where I’m questioning why this one crass and poor-taste game trying to get this reaction is the one that gets it. If this was another brown-person shooter, there would be no news about this. Without a clear line for creatives to adhere to or provoke, this will probably result in more cases like this of people trying to cross that line for publicity.

Fursan al-Aqsa is currently available outside of the UK, Germany, and Australia, including the US. In the UK, however, Steam simply says, “Oops, sorry! This item is currently unavailable in your region.“