One Direction singer Zayn Malik has received a backlash of abusive messages after he posted a Twitter message in support of Palestine.
Malik, who was brought up a Muslim, posted the hashtag #freePalestine to his 13 million followers today, and it has already been shared more than 140,000 times.
Among the abusive responses on the micro-blogging site, were messages telling him to "go kill yourself" while others called him "ignorant" and accused him of supporting terrorists.
Another told him: "The world hates you."
One pro-Israel fan said: 'You have fans in #Israel. It broke me that one of my idols wants me to die."
But other users praised him for the comment, provoking a heated debate among his fans.
Ahmad Ayyoub said: "thanks for being brave, thanks for being a human Zayn, free Palestine."
Another told him: "Don't let the hate messages you're getting deter you from speaking the truth! #FreePalestine."
Rihanna is among other celebrities to have spoken out in support of the social media campaign #freePalestine.
She tweeted the hashtag earlier this month before deleting it just minutes later, and instead posting a message asking people to pray "for peace and a swift end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict".
One tweeter said: "Pathetic how people can support the killer state of Israel, whereas Zayn Malik Rihanna get threatened when they support #FreePalestine".
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article