Lego withdraws 'anti-Islamic' Star Wars Jabba the Hutt palace model from sale after complaints
News Limited Network
April 02, 201310:50AM
The Lego kit at the centre of the row. Source: Supplied
TOY giant Lego has reportedly agreed to stop producing a Star Wars toy product Muslims find offensive.
According to Britain's Independent newspaper, Lego agreed to withdraw the Jabba’s Palace product from production in 2014 to appease those who think it depicts Istanbul's Hagia Sophia, a church-turned-mosque, which is now a museum and one of the city's top tourist attractions.
Muslim groups also said the watchtower/spire of the toy palace - a Lego version of Hutt Castle, a monastery-turned-palace belonging to crime lord Jabba the Hutt - resembled the minaret of a Beirut mosque.
The Turkish Community Forum, which issued the complaint, also said the Lego version of Jabba himself - a giant slug-like gangster who enslaves Princess Leia in Return of the Jedi - resembled a “terrorist” who “likes to smoke hookah and have his victims killed”.
Complaints about the Lego set were first aired in January when the case came to light when a Turkish man expressed his dissatisfaction with the toy after it was purchased for his son by a family member.
After investigating, Dr Melissa Günes, General Secretary of the Turkish Cultural Community, said that Lego had been contacted with an official complaint.
Initially, Lego responded by saying: "The product is however not based on any real building but on a fictional building from a scene in the movie Star Wars Episode VI"
One of Istanbul's most magnificent buildings, the Hagia Sophia was dedicated by the Bishop of Antioch in 360, under the reign of the Byzantine emperor Constantine II.
C3PO and R2D2 with Jabba the Hut's palace in the background. Picture: Lucasfilm
Its served as a Christian cathedral until the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople in 1453.
It then became a mosque until the 1930s, when it was turned into a museum under Ataturk, the first president of the modern-day Turkish Republic.
It is famous for its massive dome and is considered the crowning achievement of Byzantine architecture. Some experts say it "changed the history of architecture".
The Hagia Sophia in Istanbul.
Jabba the Hutt .
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