PETALING JAYA, Oct 30: Former prime minister Najib Razak has called for calm over a controversial tweet by one of his biggest critics, Dr Mahathir Mohamad.
Mahathir, who is Malaysia’s longest-serving prime minister, has come under attack over his remarks on the boycott of French products in response to statements on Islam made by President Emmanuel Macron.
In a series of tweets, repeating what he had written in his blog, Mahathir said Macron was “very primitive” for blaming Islam and Muslims over the beheading of a teacher recently, maintaining that the killing was not in line with Islamic teachings.
He also said that in the past, the French had killed millions, many of whom were Muslims.
This was followed by the tweet that was flagged, which read: “Muslims have a right to be angry and to kill millions of French people for the massacres of the past.”
Twitter had initially flagged the controversial tweet because it was seen to be “glorifying violence”. It was subsequently deleted
Najib took to Twitter today to call for calm, urging people to read Mahathir’s statement in its full context.
“I’m sure he didn’t mean exactly what he said, and even if he did, it’s his personal opinion, not Malaysia’s.
“In the meantime, someone should take away all his social media accounts before he does more damage.”
Macron’s comments last week came in response to the beheading of Samuel Paty at his school in a suburb outside Paris earlier this month, after he had shown caricatures of Prophet Muhammad during a class he was leading on free speech.
