Courtesy PID
Human rights minister says article she had originally shared has been ‘corrected by relevant publication’
The French Embassy in Pakistan on Sunday accepted Human Rights Minister Shireen Mazari’s “correction” and “apologies” for sharing a post on Twitter in which she “insulted” French President Emmanuel Macron.
“Thanks for the correction and your apologies. Freedom of expression and debates are essential in democracies, based on verified and accurate facts,” read a posting of the embassy after Mazari deleted her post.
In the now-deleted tweet, the minister had compared Macron to the Nazis. “Macron is doing to Muslims what the Nazis did to Jews—Muslim children will get ID numbers (other children won’t) just as Jews were forced to wear the yellow star on their clothing for identification,” she claimed while sharing a story that alleged only Muslim children would be issued special IDs so the government could monitor them more closely.
The publication later amended the article and issued a clarification stating the law under consideration applied to all children in France, not just Muslims.
The French Embassy termed this “fake news” and issued a statement calling out Mazari for using terms “that are deeply shocking and insulting for the President of the Republic and for our country.”
In said that her “despicable words” were “blatant lies, loaded with an ideology of hatred and violence. Such slanderous comments are disgraceful at such level of responsibility. We rejected them strongly.”
The statement went on to say that its condemnation had been forwarded to the Charge d’affaires of Pakistan, adding that Pakistan “must rectify this statement and return to the path of dialogue based on respect.”
In her “clarification,” Mazari shared a message sent to her by the French ambassador to Pakistan, noting that the article she had shared had been corrected. “I have also deleted my tweet on the same,” she said, though she is still sharing a screenshot of her earlier tweet while questioning France’s discrimination of Muslim women.