MOSCOW: the leader of the Muslim majority of Russia Chechnya region said Tuesday that the French president Emmanuel macron he was inspiring the terrorists by justifying the cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad as being protected by the rights of free speech.
Ramzan Kadyrov, a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, made the comments after France warned its citizens living or traveling in several Muslim-majority countries to take additional security precautions due to anger over the cartoons.
The dispute has its roots in a knife attack in front of a French school on October 16 in which a man of Chechen origin was beheaded. Samuel Paty, a teacher who had shown students cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad in a lesson on freedom of expression.
The cartoons, first published by a satirical magazine whose Paris Offices were attacked by gunmen who killed 12 people in 2015, and many Muslims consider them blasphemous.
Kadyrov, a former rebel who backed a Kremlin military campaign that crushed an Islamist insurgency in Chechnya and nearby Russian regions, has downplayed the fact that Paty’s attacker was born in Chechnya, saying he grew up in France.
In an Instagram post on Tuesday, Kadyrov said Macron was wrong to characterize the display of such cartoons as freedom of expression.
“You are forcing people into terrorism, pushing people towards it, leaving them no choice, creating the conditions for the growth of extremism in the minds of young people. You can boldly call yourself the leader and inspiration of terrorism in your country.” Kadyrov wrote. , addressing Macron.
Macron has hailed Paty as “a silent hero” and has vowed to fight “Islamist separatism” in France.
Asked by Reuters for comment, an official in the French presidential administration said: “We will not be intimidated and will warn those who sow hatred, which, in Kadyrov’s case, is unacceptable.
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