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Pakistan on Monday summoned the French ambassador in Islamabad, a day after Prime Minister Imran Khan accused French President Emmanuel Macron of attacking Islam by defending the publication of cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed. Morocco has also condemned the caricatures.
The Pakistani foreign office on Monday confirmed that it summoned the French ambassador in Islamabad and had issued a statement saying, “Pakistan condemns systematic Islamophobic campaign under the garb of freedom of expression.”
Khan’s comments Sunday came after Macron paid tribute to Samuel Paty, a French teacher who was beheaded by an Islamist radical for displaying cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed in a class on freedom of expression.
The summons in Islamabad came a day after the Moroccan foreign ministry issued a similar statement condemning the beheading, but adding that “freedom of expression cannot, for any reason, justify the insulting provocation and the insulting offense of the Muslim religion”.
Macron has defended the right to display the caricatures and French media have republished them; in some places, they were even projected on buildings.
Supermarket shelves stripped of French products in many Arab countries
France has a long tradition of caricatures taking on political and religious authorities. But recent comments by French politicians, such as a compleaint by Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin about religious food aisles in French supermarkets, have sparked controversy in many parts of the Muslim world.
France has faced a backlash over the cartoons, including boycotts of French products with the hashtag #BoycottFrenchProducts in English and “for the Messenger of Allah” in Arabic trending on Twitter over the weekend.
France calls for end to boycott
On Sunday, France urged Arab countries to stop calls for boycotts of French products.
“These calls for boycott are baseless and should stop immediately, as well as all attacks against our country, which are being pushed by a radical minority,” the statement said.
On Sunday, Macron said in a tweet: “We will not give in, ever” to Islamic radicals. “We do not accept hate speech and defend reasonable debate,” the French leader added.
We will not give in, ever.
We respect all differences in a spirit of peace. We do not accept hate speech and defend reasonable debate. We will always be on the side of human dignity and universal values.— Emmanuel Macron (@EmmanuelMacron) October 25, 2020
Khan asks Facebook to ban ‘Islamophobic content’
In an open letter posted on Facebook Sunday, Pakistan’s prime minister accused France of failing to “distinguish between radical extremist Muslim citizens and the mainstream Muslim citizenry of Islam”.
“In France, Islam has been associated with terrorism and publication of blasphemous cartoons targeting Islam,” said the statement. “This will lead to further polarization and marginalization of Muslims in France. How will the French distinguish between radical extremist Muslim citizens and the mainstream Muslim citizenry of Islam?”
Khan called on Facebook to ban Islamophobic content on its platform. “I would ask you to place a similar ban on Islamophobia and hate against Islam for Facebook that you have put in place for the Holocaust,” he said.
This month, Facebook said it was updating its hate speech policy to ban content that denied or distorted the Holocaust.
“One cannot send a message that while hate messages against some are unacceptable, these are acceptable against others,” Khan said, adding such a stance was “reflective of prejudice and bias that will encourage further radicalization”.
In response, a Facebook spokeswoman told Reuters the company opposed all forms of hate and did not allow attacks based on race, ethnicity, national origin or religion.
“We’ll remove this hate speech as soon as we become aware of it,” the spokeswoman said in a statement, adding that Facebook had “more work to do”.
(FRANCE 24 with AFP and REUTERS)