London: An anti-immigrant group is seriously being mocked after its activists mistook six empty bus seats posted on its Facebook page as women wearing burqas.
The image was shared to private Facebook group “Fedrelandet viktigst”, which translates as “Fatherland first”, sparked a debate among its members after it appeared to show the seats occupied by women wearing the full-face veil.
The photo has gone viral in Norway after others shared screenshots of the nationalist group’s outraged reactions, reports Independent.
“Islam is and always will be a curse.” “Get them out of our country – frightening times we are living in,” read some of the comments.
The photograph was posted “for a joke” last week by Johan Slåttavik, beneath a question asking the group: “What do we think of this?” He told Nettavisen he was “interested to see how people’s perceptions of an image are influenced by how others around them react. I ended up having a good laugh.”
Norway has recently become the European country to propose restrictions on burqas and niqabs in public places after Norway’s right-wing government proposed a so-called burqa ban earlier in the year.
With France the first to implement a nationwide burqa ban in April 2011. Belgium and Bulgaria followed, with partial or regional prohibitions now in place in Italy, Spain, Denmark and Switzerland.
The German, Austrian and Dutch parliaments have voted in support of a partial ban on full-face Islamic veils, but no laws have yet come into force.