Iran slams French magazine’s reprinting of offensive Prophet Muhammad cartoons

Iran’s Foreign Ministry has strongly condemned the French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo for republishing offensive cartoons against Prophet Muhammad (Blessings of God upon him and his progeny).

“Any sort of disrespect and insult towards the honorable Prophet of Islam and other holy prophets is unacceptable under any terms,” Foreign Ministry Spokesman Sa'eed Khatibzadeh said on Thursday.

“The French magazine’s disrespectful conduct, which has been repeated on the false pretext of freedom of speech and which has deeply offended monotheists worldwide, is a provocative act insulting the beliefs of more than one billion Muslims,” he added.

According to Press TV, on Tuesday, Charlie Hebdo republished offensive cartoons of Prophet Muhammad (Blessings of God upon him and his progeny) on the eve of the trial of suspects in a deadly attack on the paper’s office five years ago.

In January 2015, two terrorists attacked the magazine’s offices in Paris, killing 12 people, many of whom worked for the publication. The attack, condemned by Muslims across the world, was allegedly a response to the magazine’s offensive cartoon of the Prophet of Islam (Blessings of God upon him and his progeny) a few years earlier.

The terrorists who attacked Charlie Hebdo were French-born brothers Cherif and Said Kouachi, who claimed the attacks in the name of al-Qaeda.

Many French journalists and politicians at the time were quick to defend the French magazine’s blasphemous actions under the pretext of freedom of speech.

However, many have argued that Charlie Hebdo focuses disproportionately on mocking Muslims while steering clear of touching on certain issues and interest groups.

One of the magazine’s leading satirists, Maurice Sinet, was fired from the French weekly for writing a piece suggesting that the son of former French President Nicolas Sarkozy may be seeking to marry with the daughter of a wealthy Jewish family in 2008 for economic gain.

Philippe Val, the magazine’s Director who had published Islamophobic cartoons of Prophet Muhammad (Blessings of God upon him and his progeny) in 2006 in the name of press freedom, slammed Sinet’s piece as being “anti-Semitic” and demanded him to apologize before firing him.

The French magazine’s offensive cartoons were originally published by the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten in 2005.

Speaking about the magazine’s most recent offensive cartoons on Thursday, Khatibzadeh dismissed the idea that Charlie Hebdo’s provocative Islamophobic actions were acceptable under freedom of speech.

“Unlike the obscene actions of this magazine, freedom of speech is a virtue which should be used to promote peaceful coexistence among human beings and followers of different religions,” he said.

The republishing of the blasphemous cartoons has prompted condemnations and protests across the Muslim world.

ME