France had demanded a Pakistani official to withdraw comments that Macron was treating Muslims like the Nazis treated Jews.
A Pakistani minister has withdrawn comments she previously made that French President Emmanuel Macron was treating Muslims like the Nazis had treated Jews in World War II.
The French Foreign Minister had demanded that the Pakistani authorities withdraw comments posted on Twitter by Pakistan’s Federal Minister for Human Rights, Shireen Mazari, on Saturday.
“Macron is doing to Muslims what the Nazis did to Jews: Muslim children will get identification numbers (other children will not) just as Jews were forced to wear the yellow star on their clothing to identify themselves.” Mazari had said in a tweet. link to an article online.
However, the article was amended earlier on Sunday to reflect the fact that the idea, if implemented, would apply to all children in France and not just Muslim children.
In a follow-up tweet Sunday, Mazari initially doubled down on his claims following a conviction by the French Foreign Ministry on Saturday night, which described them as “blatant lies, imbued with an ideology of hate and violence.”
Later on Sunday, however, Mazari tweeted: “The article I had quoted has been corrected by the relevant publication, I have also deleted my tweet about it.”
‘Hate’
The incident follows anger in Pakistan over the reissue of cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad by the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo.
The images have sparked anger and protests in the Muslim world, especially in Pakistan.
The Prophet is deeply revered by Muslims and any kind of visual representation of him is prohibited in Islam. Muslims consider the cartoons in question to be offensive and Islamophobic because they are perceived to link Islam to “terrorism.”
Pakistan’s parliament passed a resolution in late October urging the government to withdraw its envoy from Paris, accusing Macron of “inciting hatred” against Muslims.
In early October, Macron delivered a speech in which he described Islam as a religion “in crisis” globally and said he would work against “Islamist separatism” in France.
Two weeks later, a French history teacher, Samuel Paty, was beheaded outside his school by an 18-year-old of Chechen origin for showing cartoons of the Prophet in a class on freedom of expression.
Demonstrations against Macron’s comments on the Prophet’s cartoons in Lahore [File: Rahat Dar/EPA-EFE]
Macron paid tribute to Paty, refusing to condemn the right to show the cartoons, promising: “We will not renounce cartoons” and defending France’s strict secularism and its long tradition of satire.
French officials have said the beheading was an assault on the French core value of free speech. The attacks have sparked harsher rhetoric from Macron against what he calls “Islamist separatism.”
Meanwhile, thousands across the Muslim world have protested against Macron and his government, outraged by the French leader’s comments on Islam and by renewed official support for the right to show the cartoons.
Some Muslim countries have called for boycotts of French products and various international media outlets, as well as allies of France, have criticized the actions of Macron and his government.
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