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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 organization 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 spokeswoman, 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 offense 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.
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