CHINA REJECT CALLS FROM AUSTRALIA TO TAKE DOWN TWEET OVER WAR CRIMES ALLEGATIONS

Mon 30 November 2020:

Prime minister seeks removal of senior Chinese official’s tweet showing Australian soldier killing Afghan child

China’s foreign ministry has rejected calls from the Australian prime minister to apologise over an inflammatory tweet over war crimes allegations, insisting it is Australia that should be saying sorry for the loss of life in Afghanistan.

Australia on Monday demanded China apologize for a tweet attacking the Australian military in the wake of a major war crimes probe that uncovered the killing of dozens of Afghan civilians, local media reported.

Monday’s tweet from Zhao Lijian, a spokesman with China’s foreign ministry, seized on a recent report from a four-year-long official investigation into the conduct of Australian special forces soldiers in Afghanistan.

Zhao wrote that he was “shocked by murder of Afghan civilians & prisoners by Australian soldiers” and he called for accountability.

The tweet was accompanied by an inflammatory image that appears to depict an Australian soldier cutting the throat of a young civilian holding a sheep, together with the words “Don’t be afraid, we are coming to bring you peace!”

Shocked by murder of Afghan civilians & prisoners by Australian soldiers. We strongly condemn such acts, &call for holding them accountable. pic.twitter.com/GYOaucoL5D

— Lijian Zhao 赵立坚 (@zlj517) November 30, 2020

As the outrage over the digitally altered image threatened to sink already tense relations between the two countries to a new low, Morrison said on Monday the Chinese government “should be totally ashamed of this post”, which he said diminished Beijing on the world stage.

“Australia’s seeking an apology from the Chinese Government for this outrageous post,” the ABC News quoted Prime Minister Scott Morrison as saying. “We’re also seeking its removal immediately.”

Australia’s Foreign Minister Marise Payne described the graphic tweet, as the most “egregious” instance of social media disinformation she had witnessed in her career, according to ABC News.

“The Australian Government has called in the Chinese ambassador and sought an apology from the ambassador in relation to this tweet,” she said.

“We will [also] be conveying that message directly in Beijing through our ambassador.”

Photo TWITTER: China’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Lijian Zhao posted the fake image on Monday

Zhao had also “strongly condemned” the Australian soldiers’ actions last week, saying the report “fully exposed the hypocrisy of the human rights and freedom these Western countries are always chanting.”

Afghan officials, as well as other countries including Turkey, have also lambasted the killings uncovered in the recent investigation on Nov. 19 of at least 39 incidents of civilian killings in Afghanistan by Australian special forces.

The Brereton report, commissioned by the inspector-general of the Australian

Defense Force, found “credible information” that Australian soldiers murdered civilians and prisoners in Afghanistan.

Morrison said the Australian government was dealing with the allegations in accordance with the rule of law and the presumption of innocence until proven guilty, but reaffirmed that “the actions of a few … do not reflect on the many thousands of others” who had served in Afghanistan.

Relations between Beijing and Canberra turned sour after the latter joined its Western allies in seeking a probe into the origins of COVID-19, which first appeared in Wuhan, China in December 2019.