Former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad on Friday claimed that his remarks about Muslims having “a right to kill millions of French people for the massacres of the past” were “taken out of context”, AP reported. He also criticised Facebook and Twitter for taking down his posts.
Mohamad’s controversial comments came on Thursday shortly after three people were killed in a knife attack at a church in France’s Nice city. There has been unrest in the country after the beheading of a teacher near Paris earlier this month. The teacher had showed caricatures of Prophet Muhammad in class before the attack. Following this, French President Emmanuel Macron had vowed a crackdown on “Islamic extremism”.
Mohamad’s comment was part of a blog, which was posted on Twitter and Facebook. It was later removed from both the sites for violating rules. On Friday, Mohamad wrote another blog post justifying his stand.
“I am indeed disgusted with attempts to misrepresent and take out of context what I wrote on my blog,” Mohamad said in a statement, according to AP. He said critics failed to read his blog in full, especially the next sentence which read: “But by and large 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 also said Twitter and Facebook removed the posting despite his explanation.
“On the one hand, they defended those who chose to display offending caricatures of Prophet Mohamad... and expect all Muslims to swallow it in the name of freedom of speech and expression,” he added.
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