Afghanistan Times
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KABUL: Amid tensions in France over cartoons denigrating Prophet Mohammad and several knife attacks that followed, French President Emmanuel Macron said Sunday that his country has no problem with any religion, signaling his attempt to deescalate the tense situation.
“All religions are freely active in this land. Shame and disgrace can’t be labeled to France,” French embassy in Kabul said in a tweet quoting President Macron.
Macron stated that France was interested in and dependent on peace and coexistence.
The tweet comes after a protest in Kabul on Wednesday against Emanuel Macron’s recent controversial remarks in Islam. Kabul high school students also protested against Macron’s remarks.
Tempers have been running high in Afghanistan ever since tensions broke out in France over cartoons denigrating the prophet. A standoff has erupted between France and Muslim countries after Macron reacted to the beheading of a French schoolteacher who had shown his class cartoons of Prophet Mohammed during a lesson about freedom of speech.
Despite the outcry by Muslim nations around the world over Macron’s remarks, the French president accused Muslims of separatism and vowed not to censor freedom of speech.
French goods have, however, already been pulled from supermarket shelves in Qatar and Kuwait, among other Gulf states, and in Syria people have burned pictures of Macron and French flags have been torched in the Libyan capital Tripoli.
Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan also weighed in last week and wrote to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg requesting that the social media company ban Islamophobic content on its platform, similar to that in place for the Holocaust.
After Khan, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan also called on the nation to boycott French goods.
Speaking in a televised speech in Ankara Erdogan said: “Never give credit to French-labelled goods, don’t buy them.”
