LONDON — More than 100,000 people, angered by Donald Trump’s call to ban the entry of Muslims into the United States, have signed a petition accusing him of hate speech and asking the British government to bar him from the
LONDON — More than 100,000 people, angered by Donald Trump’s call to ban the entry of Muslims into the United States, have signed a petition accusing him of hate speech and asking the British government to bar him from the country.
So many people have signed the online petition that Parliament is now required to consider debating the matter.
The text of the petition, titled “Block Donald J Trump from U.K. entry,” cited British laws against hate speech.
“The U.K. has banned entry to many individuals for hate speech,” it says. “The same principles should apply to everyone who wishes to enter the U.K. If the United Kingdom is to continue applying the ‘unacceptable behavior’ criteria to those who wish to enter its borders, it must be fairly applied to the rich as well as poor, and the weak as well as powerful.”
The petition is limited to citizens and residents of Britain, although there is no effort to verify the status of signers, who are asked to provide a British address and to check a box that reads, “I am a British citizen or U.K. resident.”
Although Trump received support from some conservative commentators, the Republican presidential candidate’s call for the United States to shut its borders to Muslims has prompted an outcry by leading political and cultural figures across the political spectrum around the world.
Prime Minister David Cameron has denounced Trump’s stance as “divisive, unhelpful and quite simply wrong,” while in Egypt he was castigated by the country’s highest religious authority.
Britain, like other European countries, has been grappling with how to tame the threat of Islamic radicalism, and critics have condemned Trump’s comments for their potential to further inflame tensions.
Politicians and law enforcement officials here were especially outraged by comments by Trump, who leads in most polls for the Republican presidential nomination, in an interview on the MSNBC program “Morning Joe.” The candidate said parts of London and Paris were so “radicalized” that the police were afraid for their own lives.
Tulip Siddiq, a member of Parliament for the opposition Labour party, was quoted by the BBC as saying that Trump should be refused entry into Britain. She called him “poisonous.”
“I would say to him you are not welcome in our country, in the same way that you want to ban people like me going into your country,” Siddiq said.
Boris Johnson, the mayor of London, also chastised Trump.
Reacting to Trump’s comments suggesting there were no-go zones in London, he said: “The only reason I wouldn’t go to some parts of New York is the real risk of meeting Donald Trump.”
© 2015 The New York Times Company
