Vandals Desecrate 148 French Muslim World War I Graves

Paris, France (AHN) - Vandals defaced 148 Muslim World War I soldiers' graves in northern France, leaving behind a pig's head hanging over one tombstone and painted slogans abusing the Muslim Justice Minister of the country, according to the reports on Sunday.

The graffiti of anti-Islam slogans in the cemetery was directed at France's Justice Minister Rachida Dati as well as Arras-based prosecutor Jean-Pierre Valensi.

The latest incident of desecration of Muslim graves is a copy-cat act similar to the defacing incident by neo-Nazi vandals on the Notre Dame de Lorette cemetery, which is France's biggest military necropolis, around a year ago, AFP news agency reported.

In April 2007, the vandals then had scribbled Nazi slogans and scrawled swastikas on 52 of the cemetery's Muslim graves at the same cemetery, which is located near Arras in northern France and is also the site of some of WWI's largest battles.

Two men, aged 18 and 21, were arrested and sentenced to serve a year's time in prison for the act of vandalism.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy condemned the act by calling the vandalism as an "unacceptable racism," according to BBC.

"This is the most inadmissible kind of racism and the president of the republic shares the pain of France's entire Muslim community," Europe's largest at around five million, said a statement issued by the presidency, according to AFP.

"This hateful act is also a attack on the memory of all veterans of World War I, beyond the faith of each one," it said.

More than 78,000 Muslims from North Africa residing in France as colonial subjects sacrificed their lives in the war.

"This is horrific, and for the 90th anniversary of the end of the 1914-1918 war. This is worse than the last time, it is abominable," Jean-Paul Doue, one of 3 800 volunteer honorary guards at the cemetery, was quoted saying by AFP.