Saturday, 05 September 2020_Iran’s Foreign Ministry has strongly condemned the French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo for republishing offensive cartoons against Prophet Muhammad (PBUH).
“Any sort of disrespect and insult towards the honorable Prophet of Islam and other holy prophets is unacceptable under any terms,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed 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.
On Tuesday, Charlie Hebdo republished offensive cartoons of Prophet Muhammad (Peace be upon Him) 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 (PBUH) 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.