The Dreaded T-Shirt of Blasphemy
Charles Johnson
Sat Feb 18, 2006 at 9:02 am PST • Views: 346
Eleven people die in riots in Libya, and an Italian minister’s T-shirt is blamed for it: Italy minister resigns after Libya cartoons riot. (Hat tip: rednaxela.)
ROME, Feb 18 (Reuters) - An Italian minister who wore a T-shirt on state television featuring cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad that have outraged Muslims resigned on Saturday after a deadly attack on the Italian consulate in Libya.
A powerful charity led by a son of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi had blamed Reforms Minister Roberto Calderoli for Friday’s violence, in which at least 11 people were killed. The protest was the bloodiest so far over caricatures that Muslims regard as blasphemous.
Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and politicians from across Italy’s political spectrum had called on Calderoli, a member of the anti-immigrant Northern League, to step down, accusing him of stoking Muslim anger by reproducing the cartoons on a T-shirt he proudly wore on television this week.
Calderoli said in a statement he had quit out of a “sense of responsibility and certainly not because it was demanded by the government and the opposition”.
Frank says: