T.B. Joshua’s Emmanuel TV suspended on YouTube for praying for gay

UK-based organisation OpenDemocracy has claimed responsibility for the suspension of Prophet T.B. Joshua’s YouTube channel Emmanuel TV.

The organisation said in a report posted to its website on Friday by Kerry Cullinan that YouTube ‘terminated’ Emmanuel TV “in response to our enquiries about TB Joshua’s controversial exorcisms”.

The report said the channel posted at least seven clips showing “the charismatic Christian televangelist engaging in exorcism to ‘cure’ gay and lesbian congregants of their sexual orientation by casting out ‘the demon of homosexuality.’”

Following Joshua’s prayers, the report further said, individuals, concerned all testified that they no longer experienced same-sex attraction.

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The report narrated Joshua’s encounter with a woman named Mary Okoye in one video posted to YouTube in April 2018.

“Joshua slaps and pushes Okoye and the 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 the woman.’

“This scene, which appears in a video uploaded to YouTube in April 2018, then changes to events a week later. Okoye, accompanied by her mother and two sisters, testifies before Joshua and his congregation that ‘the spirit of woman’ had been destroying her life. But now, thanks to Joshua’s intervention, she has ‘no affection whatsoever for her ‘second’ and ‘now I have affections for men,’” the report said.

“YouTube’s Community Guidelines prohibit hate speech and we remove flagged videos and comments that violate these policies. In this case, we have terminated the channel.”

But Joshua, in his statement announcing the suspension, refuted the allegations of hate speech.

“Our mission is to share the love of God with everyone – irrespective of race or religion – and we strongly oppose all forms of hate speech,” he wrote on Twitter.