Tommy Robinson, the leader of Pegida UK, has been attacked on Twitter by liberals following his condemnation of the terror attack in Nice as an Islamist atrocity.
As news broke that 84 men, women and children had been brutally murdered by a single French-Tunisian terrorist, Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel, shortly after watching a Bastille Day firework display in Nice, southern France last night, Robinson took to Twitter to condemn the attacks.
But he was immediately jumped on by liberals, who accused him of spreading “hate”.
And while some merely wished he could be silenced…
… others hoped he would be killed.
Another asked for Robinson’s address so that he could fight him (although he later changed his mind, deleting his tweets):
But Robinson was unapologetic:
Others meanwhile stepped in to defend Robinson, praising his willingess to speak out against Islamist terrorism.
But elsewhere on Twitter, Robinson’s point of view has been popular as fierce debate raged over how best to respond to the attacks. France has now suffered three large-scale terrorist attacks in the last eighteen months, including the attack on the Charlie Hebdo offices which saw six cartoonists murdered, and last November’s attack on nightspots in Paris which left 137 dead.
In addition, the country has witnessed a number of smaller-scale attacks, including the fatal stabbing of a police officer and his wife in front of their young son in June.
Some have called for a crack down on those who support or incite terrorism, and for tighter border controls to stop terrorists coming into the country. But others have denounced those calls as hateful or Islamophobic.