France Attack: Twitter Deletes Mahathir Mohd’s Post

Social networking platform Twitter has removed former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad’s tweet, for violating its rules banning the glorification of violence, shortly after a violent knife attack in Nice, France, which left three people dead.

The tweet sparked an angry outburst on social media with many users calling out the former Malaysian prime minister.

Cedric O, France’s Secretary for Digital Sector also condemned the post and urged Twitter to suspend the account of the former Malaysian prime minister and said in a tweet: “If not, Twitter would be an accomplice to a formal call for murder.”

“I just spoke with the Managing Director of Twitter France. The account of former Malaysian PM Mahathir Mohamad must be immediately suspended. If not, Twitter would be an accomplice to a formal call for murder,” Cedric O tweeted.

Twitter first labelled the tweet with a disclaimer stating that the posting violated its rules but was being left up because it was in public interest. The networking site later completely deleted the tweet but left the remaining of the Twitter thread intact.

This comes following French President Emmanuel Macron’s criticism of radical Islam after a school teacher was beheaded by an 18-year-old for showing cartoons depicting Prophet Mohammed in class.

In a series of 13 tweets, Mahathir Mohamad, posting from his personal Twitter handle, lashed out at Macron for not being “civilised” and for being “very primitive in blaming the religion of Islam and Muslims for the killing of the schoolteacher”.

France’s Secretary of State’s remarks come after another attack was witnessed on Thursday, where a knife-wielding man killed two women and a man at the Notre-Dame Basilica in Nice and injured several others. The police detained the attacker and launched an investigation on terrorism grounds.

The attack in Nice was followed by a knife-stabbing attempt in France’s southeastern city of Avignon and another one at the French Consulate in Saudi Arabia.

A few days ago, Samuel Paty, a school teacher, was beheaded by an 18-year-old teenager on the outskirts of Paris after he showed cartoons depicting the Prophet during a lesson. Paty was posthumously granted France’s highest award, the Legion d’Honneur, and commemorated in the national ceremony at the Sorbonne University in Paris.