By Vakkas Dogantekin

ANKARA (AA): U.S.-based animal rights group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) came under fire Thursday for posting an inaccurate video on Twitter attacking a Muslim tradition.

“This is heartbreaking. Animals don’t need to die for you to celebrate Eid al-Fitr. Have a #vegan holiday,” PETA said in a tweet accompanied by a clip showing a truck dragging a dead goat with a young goat walking alongside it.

PETA confused the Islamic holiday of Eid al-Fitr, which is being celebrated this week and marks the end of the holy month of Ramadan, with Eid al-Adha, or the festival of sacrifice, which marks the end of the annual pilgrimage to Mecca or Hajj during which Muslims slaughter goats, sheep and some other animals under strict religious guidance to minimize pain.

The meat of the slaughtered animals is then shared with the poor.

The post was retweeted more than 18,000 times while getting close to 30,000 likes.

PETA’s Muslim followers slammed the misleading post and asked the organization to remove it, saying it exploits growing Islamophobia at a time when Muslims and their places of worship are under pressure from daily attacks.

Ibrahim Hooper, a spokesperson for the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), said PETA employed unnecessary, fear-mongering tactics in its Twitter posting.

“To use this kind of knee-jerk Islamophobia and to exploit the unfortunately growing Islamophobia in our society is completely inappropriate,” Hooper told HuffPost.

He called on the group to “remove this video and, second, to post an apology or clarification of why they thought this was appropriate when it’s clearly designed to exploit the growing Islamophobia in our nation.”

Past posts from PETA appear to show the same video being used in different contexts, without any attachment to a Muslim holiday.

[Map of US. Creative Commons]