November 2, 2020 (LifeSiteNews) – In a post now deleted by Twitter for violating its rules, former Malaysian Prime Minister Dr. Mahathir Mohamad wrote last week that “Muslims have a right to be angry and to kill millions of French people for the massacres of the past.”
The tweet, which can still be read at Mohamad’s blog, was ironically part of a thread urging respect for others. The thread began by recalling the recent beheading of French school teacher Samuel Paty on October 16. The history teacher was murdered in retaliation for showing an obscene caricature of the prophet Mohammed in a class to demonstrate the meaning of freedom of expression.
“The killing is not an act that as a Muslim I would approve. But while I believe in the freedom of expression, I do not think it includes insulting other people. You cannot go up to a man and curse him simply because you believe in freedom of speech,” Mohamad wrote.
In his October 29 post Mohamad analyses the dress code of European women, stating that “over the years, more and more parts of the body are exposed. Today a little string covers the most secret place, that’s all. In fact, many in the west are totally naked when on certain beaches.”
He subsequently objects to the imposition of Western norms throughout the world, saying that: “Generally, the west no longer adhere to their own religion. They are Christians in name only.”
Immediately before the offending tweet, Mohamad wrote, “Macron is not showing that he is civilised. He is very primitive in blaming the religion of Islam and Muslims for the killing of the insulting school teacher.”
French President Emmanuel Macron’s speech after Pety’s beheading has raised the ire of Muslim leaders worldwide. In that speech, he laid the blame for the killing at the feet of “Islamist separatism,” calling for an “Islam of the Enlightenment” (islam des Lumières) that will promote of “a generation of imams and intellectuals who defend an Islam completely compatible with the values of the Republic.”
Saying of Pety’s beheading, “It is not in keeping with the teachings of Islam,” Mohamed continued, “But irrespective of the religion professed, angry people kill. The French in the course of their history has killed millions of people. Many were Muslims. Muslims have a right to be angry and to kill millions of French people for the massacres of the past.”
In a thread published on Twitter and his blog today, Mohamed complained about the tech giant’s censorship, claiming that the context of the tweet made it clear that he was not actually endorsing violent retaliation. The rest of the deleted tweet 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.”
The thread concluded with an assertion of the right of Muslims “to punish the French,” referring to the boycott of French goods called for by many Muslim leaders.
In his thread complaining about Twitter’s censorship, Mohamad wrote that “they deleted deliberately that Muslims had never sought revenge for the injustice against them in the past,” seemingly forgetting that he began the original thread with an example of one such instance of revenge. Further, the very morning of his tweetstorm saw the murder of three Catholics in at a church in Nice by a Muslim man who was heard to continually repeat “Allahu Akhbar,” the Islamic war cry (“Allah is the greatest”).
“Because of the spin and out of context presentation by those that picked up my posting, reports were made against me and I am accused of promoting violence etc… on Facebook and Twitter,” Mohamad complained.
Nevertheless, in context, the deleted tweet proclaimed the right of Muslims to kill millions of French people, while noting that this right has largely gone unexercised.
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