'Islamaphobic' Lego toy angers Turks
2013-01-25 22:09
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Vienna - Austria's Turkish community has threatened to
sue Lego because it thinks the firm's "Star Wars: Jabba's Palace" box
set might teach children to associate Islam with violence and terrorism.
One of the buildings is a "one-to-one copy" of
the Hagia Sophia mosque in Istanbul, while the figure with an axe and machine
gun in the minaret-like structure could be a muezzin, the Turkish Cultural
Community said.
The "terrorist" Jabba the Hut, the malevolent
slug-like alien kingpin from the "Star Wars" movies, meanwhile,
"loves smoking a water pipe", it said in a statement.
"It is obvious that the hideous villain Jabba the
Hut's figure and the entire backdrop encourage the depiction of Orientals and
Asians as sneaky criminals," it said.
The organisation said it was considering filing criminal
complaints against Denmark's Lego in Austria and Germany for alleged incitement
to racial hatred.
It is also mulling legal steps in Turkey.
A Lego spokesperson, Katharina Sasse, told AFP that the
buildings in the box set were faithful copies from "fantasy"
structures in the Star Wars movies and that the firm was "very
sorry" if offence was caused.
"We can guarantee that we definitely did not copy
the mosque mentioned or any other building," Sasse said.
She added that Lego had no plans to withdraw the product
before its scheduled phase-out at the end of 2013.
