Saudi Arabia on Wednesday denounced the Paris-based Charlie Hebdo magazine for publishing blasphemous material about Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him).
“The Kingdom condemns the magazine for mocking Islam and the personality of Prophet Muhammad, the Prophet of guidance and compassion,” a Foreign Ministry official said, adding “there is no justification for this deliberate abuse of Islam, hurting the feelings of 1.5 billion Muslims around the world.”
The Kingdom emphasized that freedom of expression does not approve insulting religious faith. “We call upon everybody to keep away from creating hatred against Islam and Muslims,” the official said, while reiterating Riyadh’s condemnation of the terrorist attack on the magazine’s headquarters.
Meanwhile, a leading Islamic organization has called on the United Nations to make “contempt of religions” illegal and urged the West to protect Muslim communities following the attack on Charlie Hebdo.
The Qatar-based International Union of Muslim Scholars, headed by Yusuf Al-Qardawi, appealed to Muslims to continue peaceful protests against images of the Prophet Muhammad but “not to resort to any violence.”
In a statement released Tuesday, the union urged Islamic countries to submit a draft law to the UN calling for defamation of religions to be outlawed. The union said the UN should then issue a “law criminalizing contempt of religions and the prophets and all the holy sites.” It also called for the West “to protect Muslim communities from attacks, whether they are citizens or residents or visitors.”
The union has condemned the publication of offensive material by the magazine.
It said that the new drawing would give “credibility” to the idea that “the West is against Islam” and warned the image would incite further hatred
Source: Arab News
No comments:
Post a Comment