Former Malaysian leader Mahathir Mohamad said on Friday he is disgusted because his comments on attacks by Muslim extremists in France had been taken out of context.

Mahathir, 95, sparked widespread outrage when he wrote on his blog on Thursday that Muslims have a right to be angry and kill millions of French people for the massacres of the past if “an eye for an eye” law is applied.

Twitter removed a tweet from Mahathir containing the remark, which it said glorified violence, and France’s digital minister demanded the company also ban Mahathir from its platform.

“I am indeed disgusted with attempts to misrepresent and take out of context what I wrote on my blog,” Mahathir said in a statement.

He said critics failed to read his posting in full, especially the next sentence which read: “But by and large 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.”

He said Twitter and Facebook removed the posting despite his explanation, and slammed the move as hypocritical.

On the one hand, they defended those who “chose to display offending caricatures of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) […] and expect all Muslims to swallow it in the name of freedom of speech and expression,” he said.

“On the other, they deleted deliberately that Muslims had never sought revenge for the injustice against them in the past […] what is promoted by these reactions to my article is to stir French hatred for Muslims,” he added.

The comments by Mahathir, a two-time prime minister, were in response to calls by Muslim nations to boycott French products after French leader Emmanuel Macron described Islam as a religion in crisis and vowed to crack down on radicalism following the murder of a French teacher who showed his class blasphemous sketches.

His remarks also came as a Tunisian man killed three people at a church in Nice, France. The US ambassador to Malaysia, Kamala Shirin Lakhdir, said on Friday that she strongly disagreed with Mahathir’s statement.

“Freedom of expression is a right, calling for violence is not,” she said in a brief statement.

Australian High Commissioner in Malaysia Andrew Goledzinowski wrote that even though Mahathir wasn’t advocating actual violence, in the current climate, words can have consequences.

Mahathir’s second stint as prime minister lasted from 2018 until he quit in February 2020.

He has been viewed as an advocate of moderate Islamic views and a spokesman for the interests of developing countries. But at the same time, he pointedly criticised Western society and nations and their relationships with the Muslim world.

Information Minister Shibli Faraz on Friday said that the time to apologise for PML-N leader Ayaz Sadiq’s remarks had passed, adding that now the law will take its course.

The information minister was referring to Sadiq’s statement made in the National Assembly, in which the latter suggested that the PTI government had released Indian pilot Wing Commander Abhinandan Varthaman in capitulation, fearing an imminent attack from India.

“The remarks by Ayaz Sadiq are beyond apology. Now the law will take its course,” Faraz tweeted.

“Weakening the state is an unforgivable crime for which Ayaz Sadiq and his companions must be punished,” the federal minister added.

In a press conference yesterday, Faraz had demanded an unconditional apology from Ayaz Sadiq over his remarks.

“His statement has only pleased Indians and they are exhilarated after what a person of high stature stated in the National Assembly,” he said.

Separately, in a press briefing yesterday, Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) Director General Maj Gen Babar Iftikhar, without naming anyone, said that it was “disappointing” and “misleading” to attempt to link Abhinandan’s release with anything other than Pakistan’s mature response as a responsible state.

“Pakistan responded to India in broad daylight after announcing it,” the DG ISPR said in a press conference. “Not only did we give an appropriate reply, but also shot down two enemy war planes [and] Wing Commander Abhinandan was captured.”

“Being a responsible state, the Government of Pakistan in order to give peace another chance decided to release Indian prisoner of war Wing Commander Abhinandan,” he added, emphasising that this decision, which was in line with the Geneva Convention, was praised the world over.

Abhinandan was captured in February 2019 after his plane was shot down by the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) after it violated Pakistani airspace in a serious escalation of hostilities between India and Pakistan.

A day after his capture, Prime Minister Imran Khan had announced that the pilot would be released as a “gesture of peace” to India.

While speaking in the lower house of parliament on Wednesday, Sadiq had claimed that Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi had during the post-Pulwama military stand-off with India urged the opposition parties at a meeting of the parliamentary groups to let the captured Indian pilot go because India was set to attack Pakistan that night.

“I remember [Foreign Minister] Shah Mahmood Qureshi sahib was present in that meeting, which the prime minister had refused to attend. The chief of army staff also attended,” Sadiq had said while responding to federal minister Murad Saeed.

“With legs shaking and sweat on the forehead, Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi said to us, ‘For God’s sake, let him (Abhinandan) go back now’,” he had claimed, adding “no attack was imminent; they only wanted to capitulate and send Abhinandan back”.

As his comments went viral on social media and were picked up by Indian television channels, Sadiq issued a clarification on Thursday, saying the tweets and Indian media reports were “totally contrary” to what he actually said in the parliament.

However, his criticism of Prime Minister Imran was unrelenting. He questioned the circumstances under which the decision to release Abhinandan was taken and insisted that the move was wrong.

“Abhinandan had not come to Pakistan to distribute sweets; he had attacked Pakistan and it was a victory for Pakistan when his plane was shot down,” he said in a video message.

LAHORE, October 30: The AJK President Sardar Masood Khan has cautioned that the latest threat from the Indian rulers to fight a war inside Pakistan and Azad Kashmir should serve as an alarm bell as they have come from not any layman but the Indian prime minister, defence minister and the national security adviser.

Addressing Kashmir conference organized by Markazi Jamiat Ahle Hadith Pakistan here on Friday, he said that India had been acquiring weapons and war arsenal from all over the world, and the stockpiling of these weapons warrant us to remain alive to India’s nefarious designs and prepare ourselves to respond to the looming dangers.

The State President said that the existing global order which had been siding with the powerful instead of the weak had become ineffective as the big powers are either silent over brutalities as well as crimes against humanity being perpetrated in occupied Kashmir or they are supporting India. In this situation, we ourselves would have to awaken and would also have to awaken the whole Muslim community.

He warned that on the one hand, the enemy intended to crush us through its military might and on the other hand, creating a wedge in our rank and file to weaken our strength. “The small conferences and the lip service would never resolve the Kashmir issue,” he said adding that we would have to launch an effective campaign across the world to capture the attention of the United Nations, and to compel the influential world powers to break their silence.

Sardar Masood Khan stressed the need for mobilizing over ten million Pakistani and Kashmiri expatriates to further accelerate our efforts around the world in the changed situation. Kashmir has now become a humanitarian issue, and the big powers can be persuaded to play their role in resolving this human crisis.

“Spread the voice of the oppressed people of Occupied Kashmir to nook and corner of the world and its echo should be heard in Paris, New York, London, Brussels, Geneva, Vienna, Dhaka and Kuala Lumpur,” Khan emphasized. He maintained that we have a model of the Vietnam War and the anti-racism movement in South Africa, where pressure from the people forced the United States to end the war in Vietnam and the pro-apartheid regime to abolish racism in South Africa.

About Eid Miladun Nabi, the state president said that the Great Prophet Hazrat Mohammad ﷺ is the most sacred personality in this world, and we could not tolerate His insult. He was the benefactor of not only the Muslims but the whole of mankind. The blasphemy in France had hurt our sentiments. However, it is a matter of great satisfaction that the whole Muslim world had shown strong reaction over it, He said a forceful campaign to boycott French products is going on from Tokyo to Washington.

Similar campaign is required against India also because India is killing Kashmiri Muslims for being followers of the Great Prophet. The conference was also addressed among others by the Chief of Markazi Jamiat Ahle Hadith Prof. Sajid Mir, Allama Ibtisam Ilahi Zaheer, Allama Moatasim Alahi Zaheer and Syed Attiqur Rehamn Shah besides Secretary-General Jamiat Ahle Hadith Azad Kashmir Daniyal Shahab Madni and Hafiz Farooq Rahimi.

ISLAMABAD: The Senate was informed on Thursday that Dr Aafia Siddiqui, a Pakistani neuroscientist convicted by a US court on the charge of shooting at army and FBI officers while in custody in Afghanistan, has finally signed a mercy petition.

Adviser to the Prime Minister on Parliamentary Affairs Babar Awan said during the question hour that earlier Dr Siddiqui had reservations over filing the mercy petition, but now she has signed it and the petition was being sent to the US president through the jail authorities.

“If we had the power, we would have brought Aafia Siddiqui to Pakistan within 24 hours,” Mr Awan said.

He said Dr Siddiqui had access to e-mail through which she stayed in touch with her family and counsel.

Besides, he said, Dr Aafia had spoken to officials of Pakistan Embassy in the United States by telephone several times.

The adviser said that legal action could be taken against those who had handed over Dr Siddiqui and Aimal Kansi to the United States.

On behalf of the foreign minister, Mr Awan was responding to a question asked by Senator Mushtaq Ahmad who had sought to confirm whether ban had been imposed on meetings with Dr Siddiqui in the US jail during the Covid-19 pandemic and the number of Covid-19 patients was increasing in that prison.

The written reply said that during the pandemic, the consular visits had been suspended by the prison authorities in Federal Medical Centre, Carswell, a US federal prison in Fort Worth, Texas, for female inmates with special medical and mental health needs.

“Resultantly, in person meetings of our Consul General with Dr Aafia Siddiqui had been put on hold. However, Consul General remained in touch with the prison authorities in order to get updates on the health and well-being of Dr Aafia,” the reply said.

It said that due to efforts made by Pakistan’s Embassy in Washington DC, a special consular visit had been arranged for the consul general in Houston to meet Dr Siddiqui on Sept 24. During the meeting she herself informed the consul general that her Covid-19 test had come negative. She was alert in her conversation with the diplomat and told him that she had recently been examined by her psychiatrist who had declared her well.