Malaysian dairy producer Dutch Lady Milk Industries took out newspaper advertisements yesterday to denounce an anti-Islam film by a Dutch lawmaker, in an apparent bid to appeal to Muslims not to boycott its products.
Malaysia's religious council and several other Muslim groups in the country have called on Muslims to boycott Dutch goods to protest Geert Wilders' 15-minute movie Fitna, saying it creates unnecessary tensions and misleads viewers to link Islam and violence.
In full page announcements in major newspapers as well as on its Web site, Dutch Lady -- whose parent is Dutch multinational firm Royal Friesland Foods -- said it "strongly condemn[s] this expression against Islam" by Wilders.
Dutch Lady is 50 percent owned by Malaysians, employ 660 Malaysians and its dairy products are manufactured locally, it said.
"We are part of the Malaysian community and respect all its cultures as its own. We look forward to your continued support and will always cherish the values that we share,"chairman Kamarul Ariffin Mohamad Yassin said in the ad.
Malaysian supermarket chain Mydin has already marked Dutch products with red labels to give customers the option of boycotting them. Mydin buys 60 million ringgit (US$18.8 million) worth of Dutch goods a year.
Meanwhile, the Indonesian Cleric's Council yesterday urged a boycott of Dutch products because of the film. Fifty Islamic students also broke into the grounds of a Dutch consulate in Indonesia during a protest against the film.
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