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KARACHI, Pakistan (Reuters) – Tens of thousands of people protested across Pakistan on Friday against the reprint of cartoons by French magazine Charlie Hebdo mocking the prophet Muhammad, chanting “Death to France” and calling for boycotts of French products.
“Beheading is the punishment of blasphemers,” read one of the banners carried by the protesters.
The cartoons featuring the Prophet Muhammad sparked outrage and unrest among Muslims around the world in 2005 when they were first published by the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten.
Earlier this week, Charlie Hebdo, a satirical weekly, revived the cartoons to mark the start of the trial of alleged accomplices in an attack by Islamist militants on its Paris office in January 2015.
The Islamist gunmen who stormed Charlie Hebdo, killing 12 people, sought to avenge the Prophet Muhammad, according to a French court heard on Wednesday on the first day of the trial. The publication of the cartoons was cited as the motive for the attack.
The protests on Friday were organized by the hardline Islamist Tehreek-e-Laibak Pakistan (TLP) party with demonstrations in Karachi, the country’s largest city, as well as in Rawalpindi, Peshawar, Lahore and Dera Ismail Khan.
The protesters paralyzed traffic in Karachi, Pakistan’s financial and commercial capital.
“(Reprinting cartoons) amounts to great terrorism; they repeat such acts of blasphemy against the Prophet Muhammad every few years. It should stop, ”said Razi Hussani, leader of the TLP district in Karachi.
Similar rallies held in Pakistan in 2015 turned violent, with dozens injured as police clashed with protesters trying to reach the French consulate in Karachi.
The government of Pakistan also condemned the reprinting of the cartoons. Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi said the South Asian country believes in freedom of expression, but that freedom does not mean a license to offend religious sentiment.
Charlie Hebdo has long tested the limits of what society will accept in the name of free speech.
“We will never go to bed. We will never give up, ”wrote Charlie Hebdo editor Riss Sourisseau, explaining the decision to republish the cartoons.
(Information from Syed Raza Hassan in Karachi, Jibran Ahmad in Peshawar, Saud Mehsud in Dera Ismail Khan and Mubasher Bukhari in Lahore; Edited by Mark Heinrich)
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