JAKARTA: Indonesia and Malaysia have both summoned India’s envoys in their countries over “derogatory” remarks made about the Prophet Muhammad by two officials with the South Asian nation’s ruling party, their foreign ministries said Tuesday.
It comes as anger spreads across the Arab and Muslim world, with various Middle Eastern nations summoning New Delhi’s envoys and a Kuwaiti supermarket removing Indian products.
Remarks by a spokeswoman for Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), who has since been suspended, sparked the furor.
Another official, the party’s media chief for Delhi, posted a tweet last week about the Prophet that was later deleted.
Indonesian foreign ministry spokesperson Teuku Faizasyah told AFP that India’s ambassador in Jakarta, Manoj Kumar Bharti, was summoned on Monday, with the government lodging a complaint about anti-Muslim rhetoric.
In a statement posted on Twitter, the ministry said Indonesia — the most populous Muslim-majority country — “strongly condemns unacceptable derogatory remarks” made by “two Indian politicians” against the Prophet Muhammad.
The tweet did not mention the officials by name but was an apparent reference to BJP spokeswoman Nupur Sharma and the party’s Delhi media chief Naveen Jindal, who was expelled from the BJP, according to Indian media reports.
Malaysia also “unreservedly condemns the derogatory remarks” by the Indian politicians, its foreign ministry said in a statement late Tuesday, adding that it had conveyed its “total repudiation” to India’s envoy.
“Malaysia calls upon India to work together in ending the Islamophobia and cease any provocative acts in the interest of peace and stability,” it said.
Modi’s party, which in the past decade has established dominance in India by championing Hindu identity, has frequently been accused of discriminatory policies toward the country’s Muslim minority.
On Sunday, it suspended Sharma for expressing “views contrary to the party’s position” and said it “respects all religions.”
Sharma said on Twitter that her comments had been in response to “insults” made against the Hindu god Shiva.
But the remarks, which stoked protests among Muslims in India, sparked another backlash from Indonesia’s Muslim community.
Sharma’s words were “irresponsible, insensitive, caused inconvenience and hurt the feelings of Muslims worldwide,” Indonesian Ulema Council senior executive Sudarnoto Abdul Hakim said in a statement Monday.
He said the remarks also contradicted the United Nations resolution to combat Islamophobia, which was adopted in March.
Indonesia, Malaysia summon India envoys over ‘derogatory’ Prophet remarks
https://arab.news/c98bp
Indonesia, Malaysia summon India envoys over ‘derogatory’ Prophet remarks
- Remarks by a spokeswoman for India’s ruling party, who has since been suspended, sparked the furor
- Another official, the party’s media chief for Delhi, posted a tweet last week about the Prophet that was later deleted
Briton fights for tech justice after daughter’s suicide in 2017
- Molly Russell took her own life after viewing pro-suicide content online
- The inquest heard that, of the 16,300 posts Molly saved, shared or liked on Instagram in the six-month period before her death, 2,100 related to depression, self-harm or suicide
LONDON: The father of British teenager Molly Russell, who took her own life after viewing pro-suicide content online, hopes a documentary about her death will inspire change.
The film — “Molly vs. the Machines” — about his 14-year-old daughter will “bring back some of the grief,” Ian Russell acknowledged.
He said it will highlight how the tragedy was not isolated, and “there’s a real hope that it will become part of a conversation that might help bring about change.”
The documentary, which premieres in British cinemas from March 1 and airs on the UK’s Channel 4 on March 5, recounts his quest to hold “digital systems designed for profit” accountable for his loss, according to Russell.
Perhaps surprisingly, he opposes an outright social media ban for children, arguing “getting the platforms to change is actually much more effective.”
The bereaved father is also seeking an end to impunity for big tech, which he says purposefully targets vulnerable people with addictive algorithms feeding them harmful content for monetary gain.
Molly took her own life in 2017, with a coroner concluding five years later that she had died from an act of self-harm while suffering from the “negative effects of online content.”
The inquest into her death heard that, of the 16,300 posts Molly saved, shared or liked on Instagram in the six-month period before her death, 2,100 related to depression, self-harm or suicide.
Her engagement with pro-suicide content increased toward the end of her life, until “this intelligent, caring, beautiful person had been persuaded she was worthless,” her father said.
“How Molly of all people could ever have been convinced of that, for those of us lucky enough to have known her, is just baffling,” he added.
Research published in October by the Molly Rose Foundation, a suicide prevention charity founded and chaired by Russell, showed 37 percent of children aged 13-17 had seen at least one type of high-risk content relating to suicide, self-harm, depression or eating disorders during the week they were surveyed.
According to the data, which was collected before child safety obligations of the UK’s landmark Online Safety Act became law, 27 percent of those children said they had viewed such content at least 10 times that week.
The foundation has welcomed legislation put forward by UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s government. It called a decision to ban AI chatbots from generating illegal or harmful content — a loophole exposed by sexualized deepfakes created by X’s AI chatbot Grok — a “welcome downpayment.”
But it said the Online Safety Act, which legally obliges tech companies to better safeguard children and adults online, could go further.
The law should require greater transparency from platforms and use separate age limits for different tools — such as AI chatbots.
The foundation argues that would push companies to offer fewer high-risk services and make platforms safer. It is also calling for “fundamentally repurposed” algorithms that promote healthy content from trusted sources instead of “harmful and toxic material.”
And it advocates for better digital education at schools to enable young people to “critically reflect” on online content.
Russell favors this two-pronged approach over a social media ban for children, pointing out that Australia’s under-16s block only covers 10 platforms and might push minors to more dangerous fringe sites. Youngsters might find ways to bypass the rules, he added, while those turning 16 will enter an “unregulated” space.
