Utterly repellant and malignant: world reacts to Trump's anti-Muslim tirade

Prominent politicians make a general habit of not interjecting with partisan comments during other countries’ election cycles. But Trump’s enduring frontrunner status in the run-up to the start of Republican primary voting, and the escalation in his inflammatory remarks, persuaded some to break cover.

Britain’s conservative prime minister David Cameronsaid in a statement that he “completely disagrees” with Trump’s comments and regards them as “divisive, unhelpful and quite simply wrong”.

Cameron’s Conservative colleague Sarah Wollaston,meanwhile, said a “serious discussion” was necessary to decide if Trump should be banned from Britain. His comment was “very offensive”, she told BuzzFeed .

Labour’s home office minister Jack Dromey called Trump a dangerous fool who should not be allowed with 1,000 miles of British shores.

Zac Goldsmith, the conservative candidate for London mayor, called the American business tycoon “an utterly repellent figure” and “one of the most malignant figures in politics”.

Trump expanded on his statements in an interview on MSNBC on Tuesday morning , where he repeated debunked claims there were parts of London and Paris where residents were so radicalized, that law enforcement officers were afraid to venture there.

“Paris is no longer the safe city it was. They have sections in Paris that are radicalized, where the police refuse to go there. They’re petrified. The police refuse to go in there,” Trump said, refusing to name specific neighborhoods in the city. “We have places in London and other places that are so radicalized that the police are afraid for their own lives. We have to be very smart and very vigilant.”

With emotions so high in France since the last month’s terror attacks , and with the far-right surging in regional electoral contests in the country, prime minister Manuel Valls followed Trump’s call for a ban on Muslims entering the US with a comment on Twitter.

Translated from French, Valls’ tweet said: “Mr Trump, like others, stokes hatred: our ONLY enemy is radical Islam .”

Prominent self-made Dubai business leader Khalaf Al Habtoor spoke with regret on Tuesday about having vigorously supported Trump prior to his latest remarks, having written an enthusiastic article in a prominent Gulf newspaper last summer.

In August, Al Habtoor wrote an opinion piece for the Emirates publication The National, headlined: “Why I’m backing The Donald’s bid to be president”, praising the Republican contender as the “fearless doer” America needed.

On Tuesday, Al Habtoor lobbed fresh remarks at Trump, saying to NBC : “I’m sorry I ever supported you.”

He went on: “When he was talking about Muslims, attacking them ... I had to admit I made a mistake in my supporting Mr Trump. He is creating a hatred between Muslims and the United States of America.”

In an unusual move, the Canadian government, which usually refrains from commenting on foreign election campaigns, joined the chorus of those criticising Trump.

“It’s something that we can’t accept in Canada. ... We have never been as far removed from what we’ve just heard in the United States,” foreign minister Stephane Dion said. Muslims make up around 3 percent of the population in Canada, which prides itself on being multicultural.

“No political party here could get anywhere near what’s been said in the United States, not even with an Olympic-style pole vault,” he said.

Source: The Guardian