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Alan Jones has demanded Scott Morrison apologise to Australia for his response to alleged war crimes by soldiers, with the commentator claiming the prime minister’s language helped prompt China to launch a disgraceful attack.
A doctored image showing a grinning Australian soldier holding a knife to the throat of an Afghan child was posted on Twitter by Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Lijian Zhao on Monday.
The doctored image referred to allegations made last month in the explosive Brereton inquiry that 25 Australian soldiers unlawfully killed 39 Afghan civilians and prisoners.
Mr Morrison demanded China apologise for the ‘repugnant’ photo and told Twitter to remove it immediately.
But in a piece for The Daily Telegraph, Jones said it was the prime minister who should instead be apologising, adding his comments on the alleged crimes had ‘condemned’ and ‘betrayed’ those in the Australian military.
This image, shared online by a Chinese foreign ministry spokesman, is what first sparked the latest diplomatic row – falsely showing an Australian soldier slitting a child’s throat
Mr Morrison warned the country would hear ‘brutal truths’ about some Australian soldiers ahead of the report that was revealed last month.
The report contained allegations members of the SAS slit the throats of two Afghan boys and dumped their bodies in a river.
When the doctored photo of the soldier threatening the child surfaced, Mr Morrison took aim at the artist, Fu Yu, and China.
‘The Chinese government should be totally ashamed of this post. It diminishes them in the world’s eyes,’ he said in a virtual press conference.
‘It is a false image, and a terrible slur on our great defence forces and the men and women who’ve served in that uniform for over 100 years.
‘It is utterly outrageous and cannot be justified on any basis whatsoever.’
But Jones said it was Mr Morrison’s language in his response to the alleged war crimes that gave China the latitude to launch such an offensive attack.
Alan Jones (pictured) has demanded Scott Morrison apologise to Australia, claiming his response to the alleged war crimes gave China the chance to launch a scathing attack
‘When will you apologise for your language and that of your Generals that condemned all our men in Afghanistan, the best of the best, to the charge of criminal behaviour from a report you haven’t read and before any of them have access to the full weight of the law?’ Jones wrote.
‘Prime Minister, at this point, until it can be proven otherwise, they are innocent. The really repugnant behaviour is that our leaders, political and military, have denied these men that innocence.’
Jones said he believed the Government would be relieved that China’s headlines ‘have them off the hook’ over their own ‘public betrayal’ of those in the military.
‘How extraordinary that we approve the unified condemnation of China’s behaviour, but our leaders can’t find the courage enough to accept the extent to which their language has defamed thousands of innocent, courageous and heroic Australians whom we sent to Afghanistan to put their lives on the line in our name,’ he said.
Scott Morrison (pictured) said Australia would be shocked by ‘brutal truths’ in a report into the alleged war crimes by soldiers in Afghanistan
The commentator questioned why Mr Morrison and his government weren’t able to ‘admit and apologise for the injudicious comments’.
He said the prime minister had no justification to speak about ‘brutal truths’ over the report.
‘Prime Minister, never mind asking the Chinese to apologise. You should apologise to the nation and the world.’
Jones’ demands comes after China unveiled another doctored photo showing Scott Morrison screaming at a child, as well as a disturbing cartoon of a bloodied kangaroo.
The new image, which was also created Yu and shared in the Global Times, shows Mr Morrison covering a dead body in a war zone while telling a painter – which represents China – to ‘apologise’.
The image accompanied an article saying Australia’s ‘hypocrisy and double standard on human rights and so-called freedom of speech have again made waves in its relations with China’.
The Global Times also published a cartoon by artist Chen Xia showing a kangaroo with bloody hands next to a knife soaked in blood.
Australian embassy officials met with Chinese Foreign Ministry representatives on Tuesday seeking a formal apology over the fake image.
The Global Times, a mouthpiece for the communist government, shared the image depicting the Australian prime minister in a war zone, pointing at a child and screaming ‘apologise!’
The Global Times also published a cartoon (pictured) by artist Chen Xia showing a kangaroo with bloody hands next to a knife soaked in blood
In a video shared by Chinese media on microblog site Weibo, Fu – known online as Wuheqilin – urged Mr Morrison to ‘make sure his government’s military force becomes more disciplined to avoid any similar international tragedy’.
He claimed his fake image was made in an ‘effort to protect mankind’, with Chinese media also rushing to defend him.
‘It is totally hard to believe that a head of state like Morrison got totally bent out shape about my computer graphics work. I am flabbergasted that he even organised a press conference to fume about it,’ he wrote.
‘Some overseas citizens claimed it was doctored. I’d like to tell them that their focus should not be on whether or not it is a real picture or an artistic creation. It is an incident embedded in a cartoon.’
A Global Times editorial said: ‘Wuheqilin’s artwork simply manifests his outrage after hearing such a brutal story.
‘It conveys the anger anyone with a conscience would have when hearing armed soldiers kill innocent people – worst of all, defenseless children, at their whim.’
The publication said Mr Morrison and the Australian government should apologise to the artist ‘whose work was groundlessly smeared as a ”false image”.’
The incendiary newspaper’s editor Hu Xijin called the Australian prime minister ‘ridiculously arrogant’ over his outrage at the photo and told him to ‘slap himself in the face’.
‘How could this Australian PM be so ridiculously arrogant to pick on Chinese FM spokesperson’s condemnation against the murder of innocent people?’ the article said.
Fu Yu (pictured) – who is also known online as Wuheqilin – created the image in an ‘effort to protect mankind’
‘Is the murder fake news? Shouldn’t that illustrator have made the cartoon? Didn’t the Chinese spokesperson have the right to re-post that cartoon to censure Australian troops’ murder of innocent Afghan civilians?
‘The Australian government’s many moves have made Australia more and more like a rural-urban continuum in Western civilisation, where rogues and outlaws run wild.’
Mr Xijin then said Mr Morrison should be the one apologising to the Afghan people for his army’s war crimes in a furious tirade in the state-supported newspaper.
‘Morrison should kneel down on the ground, slap himself in the face, and kowtow to apologise to Afghans – all these should be done in a live telecast,’ he said.
He doubled down on the remarks on Twitter, saying his country’s government had nothing to apologise for.
‘It is a popular cartoon that condemns the Australian Special Forces’ brutal murder of 39 Afghan civilians,’ he said.
‘On what ground does Morrison feel angry over the use of this cartoon by the spokesperson of the Chinese FM [foreign minister]?
‘It’s ridiculous and shameless he demanded China to apologise.’
According to The Australian, talks between the nations’ embassy officials finally took place on Tuesday night after the meeting was cancelled on Monday night.
A four-year Australian Defence Force inquiry earlier this month reported evidence of 39 murders of civilians or prisoners by 25 Aussies serving in Afghanistan from 2009 to 2016.
The Global Times editor Hu Xijin (pictured) told the Australian prime minister to ‘slap himself in the face’ and ‘to apologise to Afghans’ in response to Mr Morrison’s demand for an apology
China’s foreign ministry spokesman Lijian Zhao (pictured) posted the fake image on Monday
The report alleged troops would force new recruits to get their first kills by murdering prisoners in a practice known as ‘blooding’.
The Australian government has set up a special investigator to probe the allegations. Troops involved face criminal charges and being stripped of medals.
In a press briefing on Friday, Mr Zhou – who is regularly critical of Australia’s foreign policy – said the allegations make Australia hypocritical for raising concerns about China’s alleged detention of Muslims in Xinjiang province.
‘Australia and some other western countries always portray themselves as human rights defenders and wantonly criticise other countries’ human rights conditions,’ he said.
‘The facts revealed by this report fully exposed the hypocrisy of the ”human rights” and ”freedom” these western countries are always chanting.’
