THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: It is a world-renowned work of literature and one of the foundation stones of the Italian language, but Dante's Divine Comedy has been condemned as racist, homophobic, anti-Islamist and anti-Semitic.
The classic work should be removed from school curricula, according to Gherush 92, a human rights organisation which acts as a consultant to UN bodies on racism and discrimination.
Dante's epic is "offensive and discriminatory" and has no place in a modern classroom, said Valentina Sereni, the group's president.
Divided into three parts – Hell, Purgatory and Heaven – the poem consists of 100 cantos, of which half a dozen were marked out for particular criticism by the group.
It represents Islam as a heresy and Mohammed as a schismatic and refers to Jews as greedy, scheming moneylenders and traitors, Miss Sereni told the Adnkronos news agency.
"The Prophet Mohammed was subjected to a horrific punishment – his body was split from end to end so that his entrails dangled out, an image that offends Islamic culture," she said.
Homosexuals are damned by the work as being "against nature" and condemned to an eternal rain of fire in Hell. » | Nick Squires in Rome | Tuesday, March 13, 2012
