France boosts security as magazine publishes new cartoon depicting Prophet Muhammad
A French policeman stands guard outside the headquarters of the satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo in Paris, Sept. 19, 2012. / AP
(CBS/AP) PARIS — France stepped up security at some of its embassies on Wednesday after a satirical Parisian weekly published crude caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad. The prime minister said he would block a demonstration by people angry over a movie insulting to Islam as the country plunged into a fierce debate about free speech.
The government urged the magazine Charlie Hebdo not to publish the cartoons, but defended its right to do so. The cartoon played off of the U.S.-produced film "The Innocence of Muslims," and riot police took up positions outside the offices of the magazine, which was firebombed last year after it released an edition that mocked radical Islam.
CBS News correspondent Mark Phillips reports that the French government has also decided to temporarily close diplomatic offices and schools in 20 countries on Friday, the holy day in the Muslim world which often sees protests form as worshipers pour out of mosques following Friday prayers.
Protests at U.S. offices in Pakistan, Indonesia
Egypt seeks arrest of anti-Islam filmmaker
French leaders fret over new Mohammad cartoons
The amateurish movie, which portrays the prophet as a fraud, a womanizer and a child molester, has set off violence in seven countries that has killed at least 28 people, including the U.S. ambassador to Libya.
The French Foreign Ministry issued a travel warning Wednesday urging French people in the Muslim world to exercise "the greatest vigilance," avoiding all public gatherings and "sensitive buildings" such as those representing the West or religious sites.
Government authorities and Muslim leaders urged calm in France, which has western Europe's largest Muslim population.
Phillips reports Muslim organizations in France have warned the publication of the cartoon will likely exacerbate relations between Muslims and the rest of the French population, and may provoke further violence around the world, but the groups have called for peaceful demonstrations in France.
"This is a disgraceful and hateful, useless and stupid provocation," Dalil Boubakeur, rector of the Grand Paris Mosque, told The Associated Press. "We are not like animals of Pavlov to react at each insult."
CFCM, an umbrella group for French Muslims, issued a statement French Muslims to "not cede to provocation and ... express their indignation in peace via legal means."
Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault said organizers of a demonstration planned for Saturday against "Innocence of Muslims" won't receive police authorization.
"There's no reason for us to let a conflict that doesn't concern France come into our country," Ayrault told French radio RTL.
Paris prosecutors have opened an investigation into an unauthorized protest last Saturday around the U.S. Embassy that drew about 150 people and led to scores of arrests.
The tensions surrounding the film are provoking debate in France about the limits of free speech.
The small-circulation weekly Charlie Hebdo often draws attention for ridiculing sensitivity around the Prophet Muhammad, and an investigation into the firebombing of its offices last year is still open. The magazine's website was down Wednesday for reasons that were unclear.
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If you can not, and are a believer in this God, kindly explain to me and others, how can you believe in a non existant entity.
PLEASE, NO HYPOTHESIS.
The socalled miracles are extremely questionable, and are in fact themselves very hypothetical, and are basically miracles in the eyes of those to blind to see the reality.
How often do we here of a person being said to have had a miraculous recovery, when in fact, the reason for that recovery is the skill and diligence of the medical etc. personal involved, certainly not some imaginary God for whom you can offer no evidence of it's existance.
Please give me a break. The summation of the 10 commandments can be boiled down to 2 commandments--"Love the Lord Your God with all your heart, soul and mind" and "Love your neighbor as yourself"
There isn't a single Muslim who loves the Lord God of the OT, and there isn't a single Muslim who would love a Christian exactly as he would love another Muslim. If he did he would not be a Muslim!
Christianity has the same violence as Islam, both in reality and in its Bible. Ignore your own history at your own peril.
Just forget about the Crusades, the Spanish Inquisition, and the Salem witch trials.
Just forget about Hitler saying he was killing Jews to protect the honor of Jesus, and that he was doing the Lord's work.
Just forget about GWB entering Iraq because "God told me to".
You're welcome.
Take the ten commandments for example, a good set of morals for people to live by!
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The Muslims also have the Ten Commandments. Go fish.
He was a murderous criminal, a pedophile, an adulterer, and invented the most brutal God and religion this world has ever known!
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Allah IS Yahweh - that's the "One True God of Abraham".
You share that one with the Jews, too.
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I contend that a womanizer child molester portrayed himself as a prophet.
The ignorant savages that attack people today over any insult are themselves an insult to humanity, as there is no god at all.
Any notion that Muslims repsect the Bible or even understand it is way off. Muslims teach to kill Christians, to execute anyone who converts to Christianity.
===============
You must kill those who worship another god. Exodus 22:20
Kill any friends or family that worship a god that is different than your own. Deuteronomy 13:6-10
Kill all the inhabitants of any city where you find people that worship differently than you. Deuteronomy 13:12-16
Kill everyone who has religious views that are different than your own. Deuteronomy 17:2-7
Kill anyone who refuses to listen to a priest. Deuteronomy 17:12-13
Kill any false prophets. Deuteronomy 18:20
Any city that doesn't receive the followers of Jesus will be destroyed in a manner even more savage than that of Sodom and Gomorrah. Mark 6:11
Go fish, John.
But in the New Testament, Christianity, no such laws about maintainity national purity exist anymore and were abolished because the establishment of "God's nation" does not exist. Christianty is for anyone of all nations and people.
You simply do not understand how to interpret material
Matthew 5:18:
"For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled."
By the way, did you MISS that the last one was from the Book of Mark in the New Testament?
I'm not the one with the comprehension problem here, Johnny Boy.