Shortly after the news of a knife attack killing three people at a church in France’s Nice city broke, former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad said that Muslims have the right “to be angry and to kill millions of French people for the massacres of the past.”
In a Twitter post he wrote, ““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.”
Referring to French government’s response to the beheading of a teacher, he wrote, “Since you have blamed all Muslims and the Muslims’ religion for what was done by one angry person, the Muslims have a right to punish the French.”
His tweets were later removed from the microblogging site for violating rules.
Mohamad also criticised French President Emmanuel Macron’s response to the incident and called it “primitive”.
“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,” he said.
Mahathir later clarified that he did not condone the teacher’s beheading. “The killing is not an act that as a Muslim I would approve,” he said.
