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DUBAI (Reuters) – Insulting Muslims is an “opportunistic” abuse of freedom of expression, Iran’s foreign minister said on Monday, in an apparent reference to comments by French President Emmanuel Macron, perceived as critical of the Islam.
“Muslims are the main victims of the ‘cult of hatred’,” the minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, tweeted without addressing Macron directly.
“Insulting 1.9B Muslims – and their sanctities – for the heinous crimes of such extremists is an opportunistic abuse of freedom of expression. It only fuels extremism.”
Macron, who led a tribute to a history teacher beheaded this month by a Chechen teenager for displaying cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad in class, declared war on “Islamist separatism”, which he believes is taking over some Muslim communities in France.
Unlike some Muslim countries, Iran’s clerical rulers have not called for a boycott of French products. But several Iranian officials and politicians, including the heads of parliament and the judiciary, have condemned Macron for “Islamophobia,” according to Iranian state media.
Ali Shamkhani, a close ally of Iran’s highest authority, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said Macron’s “irrational behavior” showed his “crudeness in politics.”
“Otherwise, he would not have dared to embrace Islam in his quest for leadership in #Europe,” Shamkhani, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, tweeted.
“I suggest that you read more history and not rejoice in the support of a declining America and Zionism.”
(Written by Parisa Hafezi, Edited by William Maclean)
