13 September 2008
Agence France Presse

British Muslims condemned as deeply offensive Friday a computer game called "Muslim Massacre," which trumpets itself as a "game of modern religious genocide."

The game, which can be downloaded for free on the Internet, urges players to "wipe out the Muslim race with an arsenal of the world's most destructive weapons." 

"The makers of this 'game' and the ISPs [Internet service providers] who are hosting it should be quite ashamed of themselves," Inayat Bunglawala, spokesperson for the Muslim Council of Britain, told AFP.

"Anti-Muslim prejudice is already on the increase and needs to be challenged and not reinforced through tasteless and offensive stunts like this."  Players in the game - the aim of which is to "ensure that no Muslim man or woman is left alive" - control an "American Hero" wielding a machine gun and a rocket launcher parachuted into the Middle East.

In a series of levels, they first kill Arabs before progressing to Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, the Prophet Mohammad and finally Allah.

The creator of the game, known as Sigvatr, described it as "fun and funny." Writing on the SomethingAwful.com discussion forum Web site, he said: "Don't whinge about how offensive and 'edgy' this is." 

The Ramadhan Foundation, a British Muslim youth organization, voiced "deep condemnation and anger" at the game, accusing it of "glorifying the killing of Muslims in the Middle East." 

"Encouraging children and young people in a game to kill Muslims is unacceptable, tasteless and deeply offensive," said the Foundation's chief executive, Mohammed Shafiq. "If it was the other way around, with a game featuring Muslims killing Israelis or Americans, there would be uproar and rightly so."

He urged ISPs to block the site. "We urge ISPs to take action to remove this site from their services as it incites violence toward Muslims and is trying to justify the killing of innocent Muslims."