Pakistan asks Facebook to ban Islamophobia, cites Holocaust-denial decision

“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,” said the Pakistani prime minister.

By Josh Plank, World Israel News

Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan wrote to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg on Sunday asking him to place a ban on Islamophobia similar to Facebook’s recent prohibition on Holocaust denial, despite the fact that Facebook already specifically prohibits Islamophobia.

“I appreciate your taking the step to rightly ban any posting that criticizes or questions the Holocaust, which was the culmination of the Nazi pogrom of the Jews in Germany and across Europe,” said Khan.

“However, today we are seeing a similar pogrom against Muslims in different parts of the world,” he said.

Khan pointed to conflict between Muslims and non-Muslims in India and France as examples of this “similar pogrom.”

He said, “In France, Islam has been associated with terrorism and publication of blasphemous cartoons targeting Islam and our Holy Prophet (PBUH) has been allowed. 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 asked.

“Given the rampant abuse and vilification of Muslims on social media platforms, 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.”

Facebook announced on October 12 that it was adding “denying or distorting information about the Holocaust” to its list of prohibited hate speech.

A review of Facebook’s community standards reveals that Islamophobic “expressions of contempt” in written or visual form have long been explicitly prohibited under the same hate speech category.

In fact, a source with direct knowledge of the issue at Facebook told Reuters that the most requests for the removal of content relating to Islam came from Pakistan, exceeding other Muslim-majority countries.

The source said that authorities in Pakistan would often send dozens of links at a time to Facebook and demand they be taken down.

Khan also lashed out at French President Emmanuel Macron on Sunday for cracking down on terror-supporting Islamic groups after the beheading of French schoolteacher Samuel Paty.

“It is unfortunate that he has chosen to encourage Islamophobia by attacking Islam rather than the terrorists who carry out violence,” Khan tweeted.

The Collective Against Islamophobia in France (CCIF) has also compared the recent treatment of Muslims in France to the persecution of the Jews by Vichy France during World War II.

“They dare to compare themselves to the Jews during the war,” Meyer Habib, a member of the French parliament, tweeted last week.

“Reminder: the Jews never killed any French, nor massacred priests, teachers, children, police officers, journalists, etc.,” Habib said. “Political Islam, the danger!”