Update: Mr. Al-Mofadda has updated Game Informer about the situation:
"Good news (Technically only OK news). I just got of the phone from Playstation UK, they re-offered changing the name and apologised. Also said I still cannot keep my actual name though. And they said their name changing system has many issues!(What a nice thing to hear!) I will loose all my friends, might be trophies also and any social appearance or interactions! I hope fellow Gamers don't have to go to the media to get their service handled properly!"
This means that he'll most likely keep his game licenses, but that's about it. After more than seven years on PSN, Al-Mofadda must rebuild his friends list and re-earn his trophies.
Original text:There's no doubt that we live in particularly hard times from a social and political point of view, but maybe some precautions are particularly excessive, especially in an area such as gaming.
Perhaps partly as a result of recent accusations (it seems that some terrorist groups communicated using the party chat features offered both by Sony and Microsoft's online services without any oversight from the respective companies), Sony has decided to permanently ban a user who was using a suspected nickname on PSN, without knowing that it was actually his real name.
The user in question is "-iJihad-", who has used this nickname since the days of PlayStation 3, but who recently received an email from the Japanese giant which announced the ban of his account because of the use of a username that goes against PSN's policies.
The player's actual name is, however, Jihad. Unfortunately for him, and as most of you will know, it's also a word that has now become synonymous with the term that Islamic fundamentalists use to indicate their Holy War.
The user immediately sent all his documents to Sony to clarify the situation, and although the company had initially eliminated the ban, it was then confirmed a few hours later. Below, you can see screenshots of the two emails sent to Jihad by Sony.
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