YouTube has suspended the account of influential Nigerian TV evangelist TB Joshua over allegations of hate speech.
A rights body filed a complaint after reviewing at least seven videos showing the preacher conducting prayers to “cure” gay people.
Facebook has also removed at least one of the offending posts showing a woman being slapped while TB Joshua says he is casting out a “demonic spirit”.
The preacher said he was appealing against YouTube’s decision.
His YouTube account had 1.8 million subscribers.
TB Joshua is one of Africa’s most influential evangelists, with top politicians among his followers.
Why was the account closed?
UK-based openDemocracy filed a complaint after reviewing seven videos posted on TB Joshua Ministries’ YouTube channel between 2016 and 2020, which show the preacher conducting prayers to “cure” gay people.
A YouTube spokesperson told openDemocracy that the channel had been closed because its policy “prohibits content which alleges that someone is mentally ill, diseased, or inferior because of their membership in a protected group including sexual orientation”.
A post on TB Joshua Ministries Facebook account said: “We have had a long and fruitful relationship with YouTube and believe this decision was made in haste.”
What does the offending video show?
The video is an update of a prayer session of a woman called Okoye, first broadcast in 2018.
In it TB Joshua slaps and pushes Okoye and an unnamed woman at least 16 times and tells Okoye: “There is a spirit disturbing you. She has transplanted herself into you. It is the spirit of woman,” openDemocracy reports.
The video which was viewed more than 1.5 million before the YouTube channel was taken down, later shows her testifying before the congregation that “the spirit of woman” had been destroying her life but she had been healed after the preacher’s prayers.
She declares that she had stopped having “affection” to women and “now I have affections for men”.
A quick guide to TB Joshua:
Founded Synagogue, Church of All Nations in the 1990s
Runs Christian television station Emmanuel TV
His ministry professes to heal all manner of illnesses
Controversially this includes HIV/Aids
Known as the “Prophet” by his followers
Often tours Africa, the US, the UK and South America
Source: BBC