New York City Imam Deplores Setya Novanto's Meeting with Trump
5 September 2015 13:12 WIB
TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - Shamsi Ali, an Indonesian mosque imam at the New York Islamic Center, the United States, deplored the meeting between Indonesian House of Representatives speaker Setya Novanto and Donald Trump.
“I deplored that such a meeting was held during a [US presidential] campaign,” Shamsi said in his Facebook account on Thursday, September 3, 2014.
According to Shamsi, the Setya as the House of Representatives speaker was being unethical for supporting a presidential candidate, let alone attending a campaign event. Imam also viewed that Trump’s action introducing Setya for three minutes at the stage was insulting.
“It was very insulting just to smile in front of Donald Trump’s supporters,” Shamsi added.
Shamsi revealed that the meeting between Setya and Trump showed that Indonesian officials were on official trips overseas. According to Imam, the officials spent most of their time for sightseeing and shopping.
Shamsi added that Donald Trump was known for being racist, anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim.
“A House of Representatives speaker should have been careful. The meeting could have been viewed as a justification of racism from the House speaker,” he said.
MITRA TARIGAN
