This Telegraph story is very sloppily written. “Conservative politicians seized on the case, claiming it was an example of Italy going too far to accommodate the feelings of immigrant communities.”

That would suggest that non-Muslim Italians covered the statue in order to avoid offending Muslims. But then we get this: “‘I covered the statue but only for ceremonial reasons and just for a few hours,’ said Chams Eddine Lahcen, the head of the Islamic Federation of Liguria. He said it ‘clashed with the setting’ of the conference, which was focused on inter-religious dialogue and was designed to ‘bring everyone together.'”

Lahcen is obviously lying: his claim that a half-naked statue “clashed” with a conference that was designed to “bring everyone together” is absurd. But his statement suggests that the Muslim groups, not dhimmi non-Muslims, covered the statue, which would make this not an example of excessive accommodation of Islamic sensibilities. Yet that is the focus of the controversy in the story. What ever happened to journalistic standards?

In any case, that the statue was covered at all, whether it was done by dhimmis or Muslims or both, is another example of the never-failing principle: whenever Islamic sensibilities and those of non-Muslims differ, it is the non-Muslims who must give way. Happens every time.

“Covering up of half-naked warrior statue for Islamic conference in Italy criticised as cultural censorship,” by Nick Squires, Telegraph, April 17, 2018 (thanks to John):