"We`re using it now for the first time re: a group deemed illegal in Germany."
Berlin (ANTARA News/AFP) - Twitter said Thursday that it had blocked an account in a country for the first time, after German police asked the micro-blogging site to restrict access by a neo-Nazi group.

"We announced the ability to withhold content back in Jan (January)," Twitter`s chief lawyer Alex Macgillivray said in a message posted on the website.

"We`re using it now for the first time re: a group deemed illegal in Germany."

In a separate tweet, Macgillivray posted a link to a message from the police in the northern German state of Lower Saxony asking Twitter to block the account of Besseres Hannover, a far-right outfit which was outlawed last month.

The account is still visible on Twitter with the handle @hannoverticker and calling itself "the national information portal from Hanover".

But no message since the date of the ban, September 25, is visible in Germany, and the group`s website has also been blocked or deleted.

Prosecutors in Lower Saxony have launched a probe against around 20 members of Besseres Hannover on charges of inciting racial hatred and creating a criminal organisation.

The group is in particular suspected of sending a threatening video to the state`s social affairs minister, Aygul Ozkan, who is of Turkish origin.
(Uu.SYS/G003/B002)

Editor: Priyambodo RH
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