An Arab-Israeli reporter who posted articles about corruption in the Palestinian Authority to his Facebook account has had his account deactivated, for no other reason than because of the posting of the damning articles, he says.

Khaled Abu Toameh, a former senior reporter for the Jerusalem Post, reported that as of Monday his Facebook page had been deactivated.

Abu Toameh told the Commentator on Tuesday, “All I have done recently is share some articles which have been in the Jordanian press (in Arabic) about corruption. I am for transparency, against corruption, and yet they ban my account and continue to allow the leader of Hamas to have an account. I am not in favor of terrorism like he is. This is an attempt to silence me. To do this to a journalist is very bad.”

The Commentator reported that Facebook removed his account following complaints from the Palestinian Authority and Jordanian security authorities about his articles dealing with corruption.

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Facebook sent the following pro-forma e-mail to Abu Toameh yesterday evening: “You posted an item that violated our Terms of Use, and this item has been removed. Among other things, content that is hateful, threatening, or obscene is not allowed, nor is content that attacks an individual or group. Continued misuse of Facebook’s features could result in your account being disabled.”

A petition is being circulated calling for Facebook to restore the account, stating: “It is not the role of Facebook to act as a censor of the truth so please sign to put pressure on to reopen this account if there is to be a chance for peace, stifling the truth and hiding the reality of corruption and incitement of hatred instead of promoting a peaceful solution is not the way.”

Thus far Facebook has not issued a statement addressing the deactivation of Abu Toameh’s account.