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DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Iran summoned the French ambassador on Wednesday to sentence the publication of offensive caricatures of the nation’s Supreme Chief Ayatollah Ali Khamenei within the French satirical journal Charlie Hebdo.
The journal has a protracted historical past of publishing vulgar cartoons mocking Islamists, which critics say are deeply insulting to Muslims. Two French-born al-Qaida extremists attacked the newspaper’s workplace in 2015, killing 12 cartoonists, and it has been the goal of different assaults over time.
Its newest challenge options the winners of a current cartoon contest wherein entrants have been requested to attract probably the most offensive caricatures of Khamenei, who has held Iran’s highest workplace since 1989. The competition was billed as a present of help for anti-government protests rocking Iran.
One of many finalists depicts a turbaned cleric reaching for a hangman’s noose as he drowns in blood, whereas one other reveals Khamenei clinging to an enormous throne above the raised fists of protesters. Others depict extra vulgar and sexually express scenes.
Iran’s Overseas Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian vowed a “decisive and efficient response” to the publication of the cartoons, which he stated had insulted Iran’s non secular and political authorities.
The French authorities, whereas defending free speech, has rebuked the privately-owned journal prior to now for fanning tensions.
Iran has been gripped by nationwide protests for practically 4 months following the demise in mid-September of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old girl who had been detained by Iran’s morality police for allegedly violating the nation’s strict Islamic costume code.
Girls have taken the lead within the protests, with many stripping off the obligatory Islamic headband in public. The protesters have known as for the overthrow of Iran’s ruling clerics in one of many largest challenges to their rule because the 1979 Islamic Revolution that introduced them to energy.
Charlie Hebdo, which has printed equally offensive cartoons about useless baby migrants, virus victims, neo-Nazis, popes, Jewish leaders and different public figures, presents itself as an advocate for democracy and free expression. But it surely routinely pushes the boundaries of French hate speech legal guidelines with typically sexually express caricatures that concentrate on practically everybody.
The paper drew fireplace for reprinting caricatures of Islam’s Prophet Muhammad that have been initially printed by a Danish journal in 2005. These cartoons have been seen as sacrilegious and deeply hurtful to Muslims worldwide, a lot of whom nonetheless condemned the violent response to the drawings.
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