‘Pure unadulterated Islamophobia’: Author Taslima Nasreen under fire for tweet against cricketer Moeen Ali

New Delhi: England all-rounder Moeen Ali attracted limelight on Sunday, April 4 as rumours spread that he has requested his franchise Chennai Super Kings’ (CSK) management to remove an alcohol brand’s logo from his jersey.

The CSK jersey carries the logo of SNJ 10000, a beer brand of Chennai-based SNJ Distilleries, amongst others. Rumours suggested that since Moeen is a practising Muslim, he has asked the CSK management to remove the logo of the alcohol brand from his jersey and the management agreed.

However, CSK confirmed to IANS that there has been no such request from Moeen. Speaking to IANS on Sunday, Kasi Vishwanathan, the Chief Executive Officer of Chennai Super Kings, said, “There has been no request made by Moeen to CSK to remove any logo.”

Following the rumours, author Taslima Nasreen made a controversial tweet about Moeen. She wrote, “If Moeen Ali were not stuck with cricket, he would have gone to Syria to join ISIS.”

In no time, the tweet went viral and attracted negative reactions from a lot of people on Twitter. People are criticising her for calling Moeen a terrorist. People are calling the tweet Islamophobic saying that no one is allowed to call someone ‘a terrorist’ simply because they choose to express their faith.

One person on Twitter commented, “A practising Muslim is a terrorist? Don’t do what the world does, Ma’am. Many of us don’t like organised religion. However, to call an individual a terrorist coz he chooses to express his faith is just not done. He didn’t force others to go his way. He just chose not to conform.”

Another Twitter user wrote, “Very disappointing tweet from you. Absolutely Bizzare. Just because Moin Ali is a practicing Muslim you can say anything against him? It’s not a joke at all.”

Since then, the author has written multiple tweets in her defense calling her previous tweet sarcastic, but that hasn’t been accepted by the public either.