IOL, the online division of Independent Newspapers, has reportedly been hit by a distributed denial of service on Wednesday. The reason behind the attacks? The online publication published a story that was in support of Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe for “ignoring the genocide against the Ndebele people and for supporting a dictator.”

The attack was announced by Anonymous Africa on Twitter. On MyBroadband’s forum, it was described “as a hacktivist protest against the article, ‘Mugabe hero of African liberation’ on iol.co.za. AnonAfrica will be taking down iol.co.za with a DoS attack”.

The hacktivist, @zim4thewin tweeted this:

@iol your website is tango down for supporting the dictator Mugabe #Zimbabwe #Africa #Anonymous

— Anonymous Africa (@zim4thewin) June 12, 2013

The attack against @iol will continue until 2pm. we have made our point #anonymous

— Anonymous Africa (@zim4thewin) June 12, 2013

IOL posted this on their Facebook page:

IOL is having problems! We’re aware that the site is down, and we’re working hard to get it back up again… bear with us.

[Source: News24, My Broadband, Twitter]