Turks living in Austria are calling for a boycott of Lego products after accusing it of encouraging racial hatred and prejudice.
They are furious about the Lego Jabba the Hut set which they say is modelled on a holy Muslim temple and it is sacrilege to include a machine gun inside or to populate it with criminals. On its webpage the organisation asks in German "what a Lego recommending parents buy as a Christmas gift – the answer is pure racism."
The official complaint came after a father contacted the Turkish Cultural Community in Austria after spotting the Lego Star Wars range in a toy shop at Christmas.
And after investigating Dr. Melissa Günes, General Secretary of the Turkish Cultural Community, confirmed that Lego had been contacted with an official complaint and that the toy store had been forced to swap the offending building blocks that the organisation claimed in fact insulted Muslims because they were in reality copies of a mosque and a minaret.
On the community's website outraged Muslims have slammed the toy producer for being totally insensitive toward religion and for contextual errors in the toy aimed at indoctrinating children against Muslims.
The allegations include the fact that a watchtower and model of Jabba the Hut's palace are in fact exact replicas of the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul and the mosque Jami al-Kabir in Beirut - and of a minaret.
The organisation adds that Jabba’s palace in Star Wars is populated by (pseudo-Buddhist) monks, the terrorist Jabba the Hut loves to smoke water pipes and have his victims executed, and concludes that: "It is apparent that, for the figure of the repulsive bad guy Jabba and the whole scenery, racial prejudices and hidden suggestions against Orientals and Asians were used as deceitful and criminal personalities (slaveholders, leaders of criminal organizations, terrorists, criminals, murderers, human sacrifice).
