ITALIANS have reacted angrily after Muammar Gaddafi lectured 200 actresses and models on the superiority of Islam, a day after saying that all Europeans should turn Muslim.
The Libyan leader recruited the women through a modelling agency to join him and Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi at a photographic exhibition in Rome that traced historical links between the two countries.
Gaddafi gets the red carpet treatment from Italian PM Berlusconi
Telling them that Islam was the ”ultimate religion”, Colonel Gaddafi insisted that:
If you want to believe in a single faith, then it must be that of Muhammad.
According to this report, an agency paid the women between €70 or €80 to attend the event – and ordered them to dress conservatively.
The two leaders later attended a state dinner following a display of 30 thoroughbred Berber horses imported from Libya.
On Sunday night, during an encounter with 500 young women hired by the same agency, Colonel Gaddafi handed out copies of the Koran and told the women that Europe should convert to Islam.
MPs said Mr Berlusconi’s increasingly close relationship with the Libyan leader was a source of embarrassment.
Said Rocco Buttiglione, the President of a centre-right Catholic party, the UDC:
If I went to Tripoli to demand that Libyans convert to Christianity, what are the odds that I would return in one piece?
Rosy Bindi, an MP from the main opposition party, said the spectacle of hundreds of women being bussed in at Colonel Gaddafi’s ”whim” was a ”humiliating violation” of their dignity.
Ties between Rome and its former colony have deepened since the signing of the friendship accord, with Italy now the third largest European investor in the North African country.
Italy plans to invest $5-billion and build a 1700-kilometre highway to compensate for its decades of colonisation from 1911 to 1943.
The two countries also reached an agreement that allows the Italian navy to intercept migrants at sea and return them to Libya, triggering sharp criticism from the United Nations refugee agency and human rights groups.
Colonel Gaddafi travelled, as usual, with a Bedouin tent for his accommodation, which was pitched in the gardens of the residence of the Libyan embassy in Rome.
In an act of protest, an opposition party planted a ”tent of legality” in front of the embassy.
The Freethinker was founded in 1881 by GW Foote, an outspoken critic of religion. After the publication of 
September 1st, 2010 at 5:59 pm
To paraphrase the Spartans: “If.”
September 1st, 2010 at 7:30 pm
Gaddafi’s always been a Krazy Kolonel.
I think I’ll hire a crowd of people to follow me around. It’ll raise my profile and improve my public image. How about some jugglers and fire eaters?
As for the Islam thing, I’m sure that’s for Libyan domestic and African/Middle East consumption, just to show he can kick colonial ass.
September 1st, 2010 at 11:16 pm
Gaddafi is just another North African pirate trying to run a protection racket.
September 1st, 2010 at 11:53 pm
‘Why don’t you get lost you fuckin’ simple minded cornfed ex-drum majorette, male transvestite prostitute!’
Get the fuck out of holy Italy!
That’s what Berlusconi shoulda yelled at this clown. He didn’t of course. Well, but a man can dream can’t he.
I’ve got nothing against transvestites or prostitutes(bless them), mind you, but this bastard always gets me bloodpressure up high.
September 2nd, 2010 at 1:09 am
Is gadafty trying to outdo kim jong il in the batshit crazy leaders stakes??
And by “dress conservatively” did they really mean “come in with a sheet over your head” ?
And whats with the tent, is gadafty too much of s cheap skate to fork out for a hotel room, at least kim jong il has an armoured train which is a lot cooler than a tent.
never mind the axis of evil, I think gadafty, kim jong il and hugo chavez make up an axis of crackpots.
September 2nd, 2010 at 3:12 am
It’s a great tactic though.
Media: Why should we report about your crazy rants?
Daffi: Because they’re all really sexy women and tits mean sales.
Muslims: Why are you parading around women not in sackcloths?
Daffi: I am converting them from this evil western decadency.
Skeptics: So wait, your super popular talk was full of people you had to pay to sit through it?
Daffi: No, I bought the freedom of those poor, poor women for the night from a life of vice.
Long story short, he gets to promise the media sex, look popular AND look like a saint for doing it, closed loop. In theory.
A good way to burst its bubble though (I’m sure this isn’t the first such event and won’t be last) is to really get exit polls of sorts, pointing out that the attendees might have enjoyed the hospitality but have no intention of getting their clits snipped and stoned to death. But again, it’s certainly a good gimmick.
September 2nd, 2010 at 8:03 am
Tremble before the might of a religion that needs to pay people to listen to it!
September 2nd, 2010 at 11:17 am
But he’s bonkers, isn’t he? A sort of North African equivalent of our own Charlie Windsor. If it weren’t for the position that they have they would be in a secure institution where they can’t do any harm, or at least be being looked after.
September 2nd, 2010 at 12:11 pm
A racist, fascist, homophobic, misognystic ideology which believes murderers are rewarded with entry to a cosmic brothel have nothing to teach us about morals.
Not now. Not ever.
September 2nd, 2010 at 2:16 pm
Superior in what way I wonder…
Nope. Can’t think of anything!
September 2nd, 2010 at 9:21 pm
@Barry Duke
Either this is a very old story, or I have had a premonitory dream?
September 2nd, 2010 at 9:52 pm
Either this is a very old story, or I have had a premonitory dream?
I’m sure that Berlusconi would sympathize. It’s the nutter’s THIRD visit to Italy during the past year. I bet they wish now that they’d never invited him the first time!
October 29th, 2010 at 4:51 am
OK, I would like to go to Libya and tell them all that they have to go ahead and start donating money for a nuclear bomb that will be dropped on mecca so that these people can be freed from their barbaric hellish cult.