French instances in 20 Muslim countries will shut as the government expects protests after a Syrian organisation filed a complaint against the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, BBC writes.
The complaint, issued to Paris prosecutors on Wednesday, said the magazine was “throwing oil on the fire by disseminating a cartoon against the Prophet Muhammad”.
The Syrian Freedom Association, which was registered this year, accused Charlie Hebdo of “publicly provoking discrimination, hatred or violence of an ethnic, racial or religious kind”.
Renald “Luz” Luzifer, one of the Charlie Hebdo’s cartoonists who has had police protection since the magazine’s office burned down in an attack in November last year, told BBC: “I don’t think we decided to put oil on fire, we just did our work.
“Everybody’s looking or drawing flags like [it’s] a provocation but it’s not, it’s only drawings, it’s only a little sketch of papers, we are not in the Crusades.”
The magazine that jokes about recent news features some 20 cartoons of Muhammad.
Some of them are nude, hinting at another current story of a French magazine in trouble – Closer that published topless pictures of Kate Middleton.
Around 30 people have already died following recent protests in Muslim countries against the American amateur video ‘Innocence of Muslims’ that ridicules Muhammad.
The Daily Caller writes that the White House slammed the cartoons. During a midday briefing, spokesperson Jay Carney said: “We are aware that a French magazine published cartoons featuring a figure resembling the prophet Muhammad, and obviously we have questions about the judgment of publishing something like this.
“We know these images will be deeply offensive t many and have the potential to be inflammatory.”
Image via Getty.
