Imran Ahmed of the Centre for Countering Digital Hate (Credit: KI Price/The Times)
Five UK and Euro agents of the “global censorship-industrial complex” who “led organized efforts to coerce” the suppression of American viewpoints have been sanctioned by the U.S. government and are barred from entering the country, the State Department announced.
Imran Ahmed, a British citizen and the founder and CEO of the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), the notorious censorship and deplatforming outfit which defined its central mission as “Kill Musk’s Twitter” and is closely linked to the inner circle of British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, has been sanctioned by the United States government.
The CCDH, a homologue of America’s Sleeping Giants censorship campaign group, proclaims its mission as thus: “We expose the producers and spreaders of hate and disinformation, and demonstrate the offline consequences.”
In 2020 the CCDH pressured Google to ban conservative publishers, including Breitbart, and in 2021 was at the centre of a Covid-era plot to smear Breitbart News and other publications in a bid to see them blacklisted from social media. A House Judiciary Committee investigation into the CCDH’s collusion with the Biden government and social media companies to censor the internet saw the NGO subpoenaed in 2023.
More recently, the CCDH has been revealed to have been a creation of the British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer’s Chief of Staff Morgan McSweeney, who is alleged to have organised a clandestine astroturf censorship campaign targeting political rivals and outlets like Breitbart News.
Under the terms of the order imposed by the U.S. State Department, CCDH CEO Ahmed is banned from entering the country, and can be deported if present. “Certain family members may also be covered by these restrictions”, the State Department added.
UK PM’s Chief of Staff Morgan McSweeney Ran Secret Censorship Campaign to Destroy Breitbart News: Report https://t.co/gtjBwPqqEw
— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) December 4, 2025
Addressing the CCDH, U.S. Undersecretary of State Sarah B Rogers said on Tuesday that the sanctions target “the censorship-NGO ecosystem” and said that Ahmed was a “key collaborator with the Biden Administration’s effort to weaponize the government against U.S. citizens.”
She said: “Ahmed’s group, Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), created the infamous “disinformation dozen” report, which called for platforms to deplatform twelve American “anti-vaxxers”, including now-HHS Secretary [Kennedy].” (Read more: Breitbart News, 12/24/2025) (Archive)
UPDATE 12/26/2025
In a Christmas Day ruling, Judge Vernon S. Broderick, of the Federal District Court for the Southern District of New York, issued a temporary restraining order barring Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Attorney General Pam Bondi, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, and Under Secretary of State Sarah B. Rogers, among others, from detaining Imran Ahmed.
Ahmed, a British citizen of Afghan heritage, is a current resident of the United States on a Green Card. The former Labour Party advisor was among five Euro-area citizens to be sanctioned this week with visa bans and deportation orders by the State Department for their role in leading “organized efforts to coerce American platforms to censor, demonetize, and suppress American viewpoints they oppose.” (Breitbart News, 12/26/2025)