Presidential candidate Donald Trump’s recent comments about banning Muslims from entering the United States drew criticism across the political spectrum.
Denunciations, however, also emanated from outside of these shores as Trump’s name was stripped from real estate holdings, politicians gave him labels like “a dangerous fool”, and one country’s citizens even signed a petition to ban him entry.
United Arab Emirates
The Trump name was stripped off of a multi-million dollar golf course located on the outskirts of Dubai on Friday.
“On Friday, all that remained was the board’s brown background, though another billboard declaring the development ‘The Beverly Hills of Dubai’ still stood nearby,” CTV news reported. “Also, pieces of letters that appeared to spell out Trump’s name had been pulled down from a stone wall and left lying on the sandy ground. His name was still on at least one other stone wall at the property, which was being patrolled by private security guards and police.”
Dubai business mogul Khalaf Al-Habtoor, who penned an op-ed in support of Trump just months earlier, told NBC, “I had to admit I made a mistake in my supporting Mr. Trump.”
Turkey
In Istanbul, Trump Towers’ GM Bulent Kural said he “regrets and condemns” the recent statements. “We are assessing the legal dimension of our relationship with the Trump brand,” a statement from Kural said.
United Kingdom
Britain’s Prime Minister David Cameron said the call to ban Muslims from entering the U.S. is “divisive, unhelpful and quite simply wrong,” while “Labour’s home office minister Jack Dromey called Trump a dangerous fool who should not be allowed within 1,000 miles of British shores.”
Meanwhile, a petition to ban Trump from the UK received over 300,000 signatures in just one day.
France
French Prime Minister Manuel Valls responded to Trump with a comment on Twitter, which translates to: “Mr Trump, like others, stokes hatred: our ONLY enemy is radical Islam.”
Pakistan
“This is the worst kind of bigotry mixed with ignorance. I would imagine that someone who is hoping to become president of the US doesn’t want to compete with an ignorant criminal-minded mullah of Pakistan who denounces people of other religions … Although we are not as advanced as the US, we have never elected such people to power in Pakistan,” prominent human rights lawyers, Asma Jahangir, told the Guardian.
Egypt
Dar al-Ifta, Egypt’s official religious body, labelled the call “hate speech.”
Israel
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu denounced the call, which some believe led Trump to cancel a scheduled visit to the country.
Columnist Chemi Shalev, of the left-leaning daily Haaretz, likened Trump’s events to the rise of the Nazi party in Germany.
“For some Jews, the sight of thousands of supporters waving their fists in anger as Trump incited against Muslims and urged a blanket ban on their entry to the United States could have evoked associations with beer halls in Munich a century ago,” Shalev wrote.