KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 28 (NNN-BERNAMA) — Malaysia on Tuesday night\u00a0expressed grave concern over several open hostilities towards Muslims and strongly condemned inflammatory rhetoric and provocative acts that seek to defame\u00a0Islam.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Minister of Foreign Affairs Hishammuddin Hussein said some of these acts the world has recently witnessed\u00a0include populist speeches and publication of blasphemous caricatures depicting Prophet Muhammad.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cMalaysia is committed to upholding the freedom of speech and expression as fundamental human rights for as long as these rights are exercised with respect and responsibility in order to not infringe on or violate the rights of others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIn this context, to denigrate and tarnish Islam\u2019s Holy Prophet and to associate Islam with terrorism are certainly beyond the scope of such rights. Such an act is provocative and disrespectful towards Islam and more than two billion Muslims all over the world,\u201d he said in a statement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Hishammuddin\u2019s statement comes amid a backlash across the Islamic world over French President Emmanuel Macron\u2019s public remarks defending the right to publish caricatures of Prophet Muhammad, which are considered blasphemous in Islam.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Macron made the remarks at a memorial event for high school teacher Samuel Paty, who was murdered after he allegedly showed his students some caricatures of Prophet Muhammad, published by the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in 2015, during a class on freedom of expression.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Hishammuddin said Malaysia, as a democratic and moderate Islamic country with a multi-ethnic and multi-religious society, continues to promote and maintain harmonious relations and peaceful co-existence, \u201cnot only among our people of different faiths and convictions but also in the context of the diverse global community\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cMalaysia will continue to work with the international community to promote mutual respect among religions and prevent religious extremism at all levels,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In a related development, the Muslim Youth Movement of Malaysia (ABIM) called on Muslims in Malaysia and around the world to boycott French products.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
ABIM President Muhammad Faisal Abdul Aziz said it was regrettable that Macron \u201chas made allegations with elements of Islamophobia by hiding behind freedom of expression\u201d. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAs an organisation promoting religious harmony, ABIM condemns the brutal murder of Samuel Paty and at the same time strongly criticises the statement of the French president.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIn fact, ABIM believes that religious sensitivities should be respected, whereby religious diversity should lead to harmony and unity, and not create conflict among humans,\u201d he said in a statement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
— NNN-BERNAMA<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 28 (NNN-BERNAMA) — Malaysia on Tuesday night\u00a0expressed grave concern over several open hostilities towards Muslims and strongly condemned inflammatory rhetoric and provocative acts that seek to defame\u00a0Islam. Minister of Foreign Affairs Hishammuddin Hussein said some of these acts the world has recently witnessed\u00a0include populist speeches and publication of blasphemous caricatures depicting Prophet […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":66289,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[288,318],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98764"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=98764"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98764\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/66289"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=98764"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=98764"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=98764"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}