Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas has launched a social media campaign to defend itself against charges of terrorism.
The week-long push officially begins on Friday via the twitter account @HamasInfoEn and is being touted as “truth from the mouth of the horse”.
The hashtag #AskHamas is being used to encourage the public to communicate with the group.
“The campaign is aimed at rejecting the labeling of the Palestinian resistance as ‘terrorists’,” Hamas’s media coordinator Taher al-Nounou told Andalou Agency.
He added the campaign will primarily target Western audiences, with the aim of encouraging the EU to remove Hamas from its list of terrorist organisations.
Hamas is currently classified as a terrorist organisation by Israel, the United States and the EU.
Though the campaign is still hours away from officially starting (the first session begins at 5pm GMT today and will see questions answered by Huda Naim, Palestinian MP and female Hamas leader), the hashtag has already gone viral.
And as is typically the case, almost all the tweets are negative, sarcastic or simply inane.
Some however suggest the more offensive users of the hashtag have simply highlighted their own bigotry...