Twitter Deletes Mahathir’s Post on “Muslims’ Right to Kill The French” Under Glorifying Violence

By Karissa Lund  •  in News
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(source: Mothership SG)

According to NST, Twitter has removed one of Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s tweets which it initially marked as “glorifying violence”. The tweet now has been replaced with the message, “This tweet violated the Twitter Rules”.

Yesterday, Mahathir tweeted that Muslims have a right “to kill millions of French people” shortly after a deadly attack in Nice, sparking international anger and prompting Twitter to delete his post.

In case you missed it, on 29 October – three people were killed at a church in the southern French city with the attacker slitting the throat of at least one, in what authorities were treating as the latest jihadist assault to rock the country.

Mahathir launched an extraordinary outburst in a series of tweets. Out of the sixteen tweets, only one was removed as he wrote, “Muslims have a right to be angry and to kill millions of French people for the massacres of the past”. Twitter initially declined to remove the comments, but finally did so following a furious reaction from the French government.

Read the whole thread, here:

Although Mahathir never made a direct reference to the recent attack in Nice, he instead referred to the beheading of a French teacher who had shown a student’s cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad. Basically, Mahathir said he did not approve of his murder but that freedom of expression does not include “insulting other people”.

“It is not in keeping with the teachings of Islam. But irrespective of the religion professed, angry people kill. The French in the course of their history have killed millions of people. Many were Muslims, ” wrote Mahathir, where he also claimed that the West is trying to impose its values on others by force.

For now, France’s Junior Digital Affairs Minister, Cédric O, said he had spoken to the country head of Twitter to immediately suspend Dr Mahathir’s official account.

“If not, Twitter would be an accomplice to murder”, he tweeted.

Meanwhile, let’s see how some Malaysians reacted:

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