Muslim ban statement 'removed' from Donald Trump's website

A statement calling for a ban on Muslims entering the United States has been removed from Donald Trump's campaign website. The Trump team appears to have removed the statement, in which Mr Trump said on December 7, 2015: "Donald J. Trump is calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country's representatives can figure out what is going on.

"Without looking at the various polling data, it is obvious to anybody the hatred is beyond comprehension. Where this hatred comes from and why we will have to determine," the statement continued.

"Until we are able to determine and understand this problem and the dangerous threat it poses, our country cannot be the victims of horrendous attacks by people that believe only in Jihad, and have no sense of reason or respect for human life."

The page now redirects to the campaign homepage.

According to online caches, the page still displayed the message on the 8th November, but the redirect to the donation page was added later that night, before it was announced that he had won.

Donald Trump's statement provoked widespread anger and claims of racism and xenophobia. President Barack Obama used Donald Trump's rhetoric about Muslims as an example of how "far right" the Republican party had become.

He told Politico earlier this year: "You think about it - when I ran (in 2008) against John McCain, John McCain and I had real differences, sharp differences, but John McCain didn't deny climate science. "John McCain didn't call for banning Muslims from the United States.

"The Republican vision has moved not just to the right, but has moved to a place that is unrecognisable."

Mr. Obama added: "John McCain was a conservative but he was well within the mainstream of not just the Republican Party but within our political dialogue."

Mr. Trump and his allies have consistently defended the ban during the election campaign, but the removal of the statement from his website may lead some to question whether he will actually enforce it.

The Telegraph has contacted the Trump campaign for comment.

Update: all of the press release section of Donald Trump's website is now re-directing to the homepage. This, according to internet abuse specialist Izzy Galvez, is reportedly due to a bug which meant people could type whatever they wanted into that section of his website.

His team appeared to have noticed, and fixed the bug by re-directing every page on that section of his website to the homepage

Source: KUNA