Newsweek Pakistan editor draws ire for insensitive tweets about child abuse

Update: The LLF announced that Fasih Ahmed has resigned from the board of the Lahore Literary Festival.

He also issued a public apology on Twitter:

On Tuesday, Newsweek Pakistan editor-in-chief Fasih Ahmed sparked angry reactions on Twitter with a series of insensitive tweets about child abuse.

His tweets, made in the wake of the arrest of a suspect of the high-profile Zainab rape/murder case, drew replies from international luminaries, including actor Alyssa Milano.

Newsweek has since tweeted saying that it is reconsidering its relationship with Newsweek Pakistan.

In his spew of tweets, Ahmed was abusive towards a number of respondents, including Egyptian-American writer Mona Eltahawy who has been a speaker at Lahore Literature Festival (LLF), of which Ahmed was a board member.

This sparked a call for a boycott of LLF until Ahmed was removed from the board.

While some specifically asked authors to boycott LLF, others pointed out the hypocrisy of Lahore's literary elite.