Five websites blocked in France for allegedly condoning terrorism

France's interior ministry has blocked five websites it accuses of condoning terrorism, and says it plans to target "dozens" of other similar websites.
"I do not want to see sites that could lead people to take up arms on the internet," Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve told Agence France-Presse. "I make a distinction between freedom of expression and the spread of messages that serve to glorify terrorism. These hate messages are a crime." Two of the affected websites are the al-Hayat Media Center, which the interior ministry says has links to ISIS, and islamic-news.info.
Internet service providers have been told they have 24 hours to take "all necessary measures to block the listing of these addresses." The new rules regarding websites are part of counterterrorism measures approved by parliament in November.
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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.
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