Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s anti-Muslim remark sparks uproar

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks to the crowd at a Pearl Harbour Day Rally at the U.S.S. Yorktown December 7, 2015 in South Carolina, USA. Mr Trump on Tuesday called for a “total and complete” block on Muslims entering the United States, in the wake of last week's mass shooting in California by a Muslim couple believed to have been radicalized. PHOTO | SEAN RAYFORD |

What you need to know:

  • Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump on Tuesday called for a “total and complete” block on Muslims entering the United States, in the wake of last week’s mass shooting in California by a Muslim couple believed to have been radicalised.
  • The British Government condemned comments by US presidential hopeful Donald Trump as “wrong” on Tuesday, after the Republican frontrunner said Muslims should be barred from entering the United States.
  • Republican presidential frontrunner Trump’s inflammatory call is part of what activists have described as an unprecedented anti-Muslim backlash following the Paris attacks and the shooting in California.

WASHINGTON, Tuesday

Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump on Tuesday called for a “total and complete” block on Muslims entering the United States, in the wake of last week’s mass shooting in California by a Muslim couple believed to have been radicalised.

A statement from Trump’s campaign team said the halt on Muslims entering the country should remain in place “until our country’s representatives can figure out what is going on.”

The statement does not specify if the proposal would affect both tourists and immigrants, and also does not say if it would target American Muslims currently abroad.

RELIGIOUS HATRED

Trump’s campaign cites poll data allegedly showing “hatred toward Americans by large segments of the Muslim population.”

“Where this hatred comes from and why we will have to determine,” the billionaire real estate mogul, who is leading in opinion polls among likely Republican voters, said in the statement.

The British Government condemned comments by US presidential hopeful Donald Trump as “wrong” on Tuesday, after the Republican frontrunner said Muslims should be barred from entering the United States.

British Prime Minister David Cameron “completely disagrees” with the remarks, which are “divisive, unhelpful and quite simply wrong”, a spokeswoman for the Conservative leader said.

CONTRARY TO VALUES

A senior White House aide on yesterday branded Mr Trump’s proposal to ban Muslims from entering the United States as “totally contrary to our values as Americans.”

“We have, in our Bill of Rights, respect for the freedom of religion,” one of President Barack Obama’s top foreign policy aides, Ben Rhodes, told CNN.

Muslim Americans are pleading with Mr Trump to stop encouraging violence in demanding a “complete” halt to Muslim immigration after a New York shopkeeper was beaten in a possible hate crime.

Republican presidential frontrunner Trump’s inflammatory call is part of what activists have described as an unprecedented anti-Muslim backlash following the Paris attacks and the shooting in California.

“He is giving the right to people to hurt us,” said Ahmed Shedeed, who moved to the US from Egypt in 1980.