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Secretary of State Francken makes embarrassing Twitter blunder
Belgium's Secretary of State and member of the Flemish nationalist party N-VA , Theo Francken, made an embarrassing blunder on Twitter, writes Knack. In the tweet, Francken accused a member of the Flemish Youth Council of “tweeting under the name 'Jihad'”, but that's just her first name. The Secretary of State has since apologised for the mistake.
"Boom, just for Theo Francken," tweeted Jihad Van Puymbroeck on Monday in reference to an open letter on the Flemish Youth Council's website. The letter to Francken laments the difficult situation of refugee children and asks the Secretary of State for help.
Francken responded quickly on the social media network, but with little regard for the content of the letter.: “@Jihad_VP, 'Hey look, I'm a member of the Flemish Youth Council and I tweet under 'jihad'”, tweeted Francken, unaware that Jihad is simply her real name, and not a reference to the 'holy war'.
The N-VA politician has since offered his apologies on Twitter: "If that is in fact your name, then I hereby apologise. Didn't know that 'Jihad' was a name," Francken confessed.
Comments
For once, I have sympathy for an N-VA politician. Every language has words which may not be used as names you give your children. Although it can be a bit subjective, any word which is likely to be an affront to public order is disallowed. In today's highly emotive situation, it would seem to me that the word "JIHAD" would qualify as one of those words which ought not be used to name your child. We should not be calling our children "Holy War" when in the name of "Jihad", scores of people are being dying. It seems utterly inappropriate and yes, in my view, an affront to public order. As the girl whose real name is "Jihad", one would have thought that she would recognise the glaringly obvious and choose another more appropriate handle for her Twitter feed. Instead, she's clearly vying for attention and it smacks of immaturity.