The Sun has deleted a tweet promoting a controversial column attacking Channel 4 News for using a Muslim presenter to report news of the Nice truck attack.
Kelvin MacKenzie’s column, which ran with the headline “Why did Channel 4 have a presenter in a hijab fronting coverage of Muslim terror in Nice?”, appeared in Monday’s edition of the paper.
In it MacKenzie criticises Channel 4 News for using Fatima Manji, who wears a hijab, to front its coverage of the Nice truck attack on Friday night.
MacKenzie argued that Channel 4 would not have used an “Orthodox Jew to cover the Israeli-Palestine conflict” so it should not have used Manji to cover the Nice attack.
“Was it appropriate for her to be on camera when there had been yet another shocking slaughter by a Muslim?,” asked MacKenzie. “With all the major terrorist outrages in the world currently being carried out by Muslims, I think the rest of us are reasonably entitled to have concerns about what is beating in their religious hearts. Who is in the studio representing our fears? Nobody.”
The Sun tweeted out the column on Monday morning and then deleted it.
A source said that the decision had been taken because the tweet did not make clear that the piece was by MacKenzie, and not by the Sun.
A spokesman for the Sun declined to comment on the decision to delete the tweet.