TEHERAN: Iran has condemned the publication of a new cartoon of the Prophet Mohammed (Pbuh) by Charlie Hebdo – the French satirical magazine – calling it insulting and said publishing it was extremely stupid.
The new issues cover “provokes the emotions of Muslims and hurts their feelings around the world, and could fan the flame of a vicious circle of extremism,” Marzieh Afkham a spokeswoman from Irans foreign ministry announced at a press conference.
The publication of a new Charlie Hebdo magazine, which depicts the Prophet in caricature on its front cover. This follows an attack by Islamist gunmen last week at the magazine’s office in Paris, which killed 12 people.
Iran had earlier condemned the massacre the day it occurred and Afkham said Wednesday that such attacks “have no closeness or similarity to Islam” and are “in complete contradiction to Islamic teaching”.
Afkham indicated that the new cartoon is “abuse of freedom of speech, which is common in the West these days”.
In remarks on the sidelines of nuclear talks in Geneva, Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif called for mutual respect among different cultures.
“We believe that sanctities need to be respected and unless we learn to respect one another it will be very difficult in a world of different views and differing cultures and civilizations,” he told reporters.
The new cartoon has also been criticised by the Iranian media, with one private Iranian media outlet stating that “Charlie Hebdo has again insulted the Prophet.
The issue of the magazine that came out Wednesday features an image of the prophet holding a “Je suis Charlie” (“I am Charlie”) sign beneath the banner headline “Tout est Pardonne” (“All is Forgiven”).
Three million copies of the new issue is being printed, compared to the usual print run of just 60,000 more than 50 times the usual circulation. It will be available in six languages, including Turkish and Arabic.
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