There has been outrage in France and across the world after a former Malaysian Prime Minister said that Muslims had the right to kill millions of French people because of what France did in the past as a colonial power and as a result of Macron's statements on French Muslims not properly integrating into mainstream French society.
In a shocking tweet that Twitter has now removed due to violating its policies on hate-speech', Mahathir Mohamad, tweeted:
"Muslims have a right to be angry and to kill millions of French people for the massacres of the past."
The comments came shortly after an Islamic extremist asylum seeker killed 3 people in the French city of Nice at a church, and just a week after another Islamic extremist asylum seeker from Chechnya beheaded a French history teacher, Samuel Paty, outside his school after he showed pictures of the prophet Mohammed in class.
In the tweet thread, the former Malaysian Prime Minister said:
"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. 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. 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."
The tweets are particularly chilling coming from someone who previously held such a position of power in a very economically advanced country such as Malaysia.
Brian Klaas, an associate professor in global politics at University College London, highlighted the tweets to Twitter admins before it was taken down, saying:
"Take this down urgently, @TwitterSupport. It's an incitement to mass killing by a former prime minister of Malaysia with more than a million followers. How has this been allowed to stay up for over an hour?!"
Under French law, religion and public life, such as education, must be strictly separated. Since 2011 no woman has been allowed to cover their face in public in France with a burka. Since 2004 Islamic headscarves are banned from being worn inside French schools.
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