Former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad had a post removed on Twitter for glorifying the knife attack in Nice, which left three people dead.
In a series of tweets, Mahathir Mohamad had said that “Muslims have a right to be angry and kill millions of French people for the massacres of the past”. It sparked an angry outburst on social media with many users calling out the former Malaysian prime minister.
Cedric O, France’s Secretary for Digital Sector also condemned the post and urged Twitter to suspend the account of the former Malaysian prime minister and said in a tweet: “If not, Twitter would be an accomplice to a formal call for murder.”
“I just spoke with the Managing Director of Twitter France. The account of former Malaysian PM Mahathir Mohamad must be immediately suspended. If not, Twitter would be an accomplice to a formal call for murder,” Cedric O tweeted.
Twitter first labelled the tweet with a disclaimer stating that the posting violated its rules but was being left up because it was in public interest. The networking site later completely deleted the tweet but left the remaining of the Twitter thread intact and Mahathir’s account active.
Mahathir had asserted that Muslims have a right to be angry and “kill millions of French people” for the “massacres of the past”, and lashed out at President Emmanuel Macron for not being “civilised” and for being “very primitive in blaming the religion of Islam and Muslims for the killing of the insulting school teacher”.
“Muslims have a right to be angry and to kill millions of French people for the massacres of the past. But by and large the Muslims have not applied the “eye for an eye” law. Muslims don’t. The French shouldn’t. Instead the French should teach their people to respect other people’s feelings,” he said.
Mahathir, has also repeatedly expressed antisemitic views in the past, stating for instance in 2018 that “antisemitism has been invented to stop people from criticising Jews for any wrongdoing, making them the only race that is beyond reproach”.
