How Donald Trump's Muslim Comments Are Playing In Muslim Countries

Leading Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump's call for "a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States" has drawn criticism both at home and abroad.

Trump says the ban would remain in effect "until our country's representatives can figure out what is going on."

Here's a sampling of the international reaction to Trump's remarks, including in countries with large Muslim populations, such as Indonesia, Pakistan and India:

-- "At a time when pressure is building on Muslim communities around the world, the Trump edict could not have come at a worse time," Indonesia News says. After listing some of Trump's ongoing business investments in Muslim nations — including plans for a Trump golf club in Dubai, a development in Turkey and a luxury resort in Bali — the news outlet concludes: "The question now is will the Trump Towers, hotels, resorts, apartments and villas across the world be closed to Muslims too? Or should they just be banned from America?"

--Commenting on the Jakarta Post's story about the Trump news, one reader writes, "You've got to respect how this guy keeps on saying stuff he surely doesn't actually believe himself and KNOWS are impossible and unconstitutional to actually do. He drives the concept of campaigning to its extreme ... "

--In Turkey, presidential adviser Ibrahim Kalin tweeted Tuesday, "Mr @realDonaldTrump claims to 'make America great again' by going racist in a country of immigrants?!"

-- "This creates a near-perfect toxic soup where extremists on both sides thrive in the shadows, and where the moderates and innocents suffer," writes the editorial board of Dubai's Gulf News. "His extremism is no different than that of Daesh. Zip it, Donald. Just zip it."

--"Although we are not as advanced as the U.S., we have never elected such people to power in Pakistan," human rights lawyer Asma Jahangir tells Reuters, after initially saying, "It's so absurd a statement that I don't even wish to react to it."

--The Anti-Defamation League and other Jewish groups have denounced the comments, with the Times of Israel quoting the American Jewish Committee's Jason Isaacson saying, "You don't need to go back to the Hanukkah story to see the horrific results of religious persecution; religious stereotyping of this sort has been tried often, inevitably with disastrous results."

-- Haaretz U.S. editor Chemi Shalev tweets, "ISIS dreams of an Islam-hating America that isolates its own Muslims; Trump is busy making their dreams come true."

--Trump's partner in his Dubai golf venture, Damac Properties, says it will stick with the American — and that their relationship is based on business, not politics. That's according to Abu Dhabi news site The National, which also recalls how Trump's earlier comments on Muslims and ethnic groups prompted UAE billionaire Khalaf Al Habtoor to revoke his support for the Republican, saying, "when strength is partnered with ignorance and deceit, it produces a toxic mix threatening the United States and our world."

Here's a sampling of reactions to Trump's remarks from elsewhere:

--"Voldemort was nowhere near as bad," British author J.K. Rowling tweets, responding to a BBC story on the phenomenon of people comparing Trump to the arch-villain of her Harry Potter books.

--On Le Monde's story about Trump's position, one reader comments that Trump is obviously on the way to winning the Republican nomination. They add, "How not to complain about the Americans, even if it is not much better here at home. In a time of globalization, regression wins minds here and there putting democracies in danger." Another reader of the French newspaper simply responded, "Principle of precaution."

--Noting that Trump has been criticized for being out of step with Americans' values, Canada's CBC adds, "history tells a different story." The agency cites cases in American (and Canadian) history when immigrants were barred. Topping the list: the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, which blocked Chinese citizens from entering the U.S. and frustrated their hopes for citizenship — and which was repealed in 1943.

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