Venice mayor:

Shout ‘Allahu Akbar’ and you will be shot

Rasa - The right-wing mayor of the Italian city of Venice has said anybody who shouts "Allahu akbar" in the city's famous St Mark's Square will be shot.

News ID: 431928

Date: 25 August 2017 - 18:59

RNA - Luigi Brugnaro said at a press conference in northeast Italy that he ordered police to shoot to kill what he called suspected terrorists.

The controversial mayor said Venice was safer than the Spanish Catalan city of Barcelona where 13 people were killed earlier this month in a car-ramming attack.

The mayor’s warning came as the European countries have faced a string of terrorist attacks recently.

He went on the recall the arrest in March of four suspected extremists who allegedly planned to blow up the Rialto bridge.

"They wanted to go to Allah,” he said.“We'll send them straight to Allah before they can do any damage."

"I have never been politically correct, I am incorrect. I would shoot, we would shoot," the right-wing official said at another conference in defending his order to police.

“Allahu Akbar” is a commonly used Arabic expression among all Muslims which means “God is too great [to describe]”.

Brugnaro's controversial order in Venice, known as Italy's floating city, has been likened to the Israeli regime's shoot-to-kill policy against the Palestinians.

More than 300 Palestinians have been killed by the Israeli forces in the ongoing tensions since the beginning of October 2015. The conflict broke out after Israeli forces introduced restrictions on the entry of Palestinian worshipers into the compound in East Jerusalem al-Quds in August 2015.

847/940