Posting on right 'To kill millions of French people' taken out of context - Dr Mahathir
BERNAMA
30/10/2020
KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 30 -- Former Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad said his social media posting on Thursday that Muslims have a right 'to kill millions of French people' has been taken out of context and misrepresented.
Those who did that highlighted only one part of paragraph 12 which read: “Muslims have a right to be angry and to kill millions of French people for the massacres of the past.”
”They stopped there and implied that I am promoting the massacre of the French,” he said in his blog today.
"If they had read the posting in its entirety and especially the subsequent sentence which read: '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,” said Dr Mahathir.
The 95-year-old leader said because of the spin and out-of-context presentation by those that picked up his posting, reports were made against him and he was accused of promoting violence.
He said Facebook and Twitter had then requested the administrators of his Facebook and Twitter accounts to remove the postings, and despite attempts to explain the context of the posting, they were removed.
"There is nothing I can do with Facebook and Twitter’s decision to remove my posting. To my mind, since they are the purveyor of freedom of speech, they must at least allow me to explain and defend my position," he said.
He said that is what freedom of speech is to them.
“On one hand, they defended those who chose to display offending caricatures of Prophet Muhammad S.A.W. and expect all Muslims to swallow it in the name of freedom of speech and expression. On the other they deleted deliberately that Muslims had never sought revenge for the injustice against them in the past,” said Dr Mahathir.
He said even his appeal that the French should explain the need to advise their people to be sensitive and respect the beliefs of other people was left out.
He said he was indeed disgusted with attempts to misrepresent and take out of context his Thursday posting.
What is promoted, he said, by these reactions to his article is to stir French hatred for Muslims.
-- BERNAMA
The Entire Twitter Post
The Original 12 point Twitter Post:
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| THE DELETED TWITTER POST |
