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Charlie Hebdo Mohammed cover goes global

Author
AAP,
Publish Date
Wed, 14 Jan 2015, 7:23AM
(Photo: File)
(Photo: File)

Charlie Hebdo Mohammed cover goes global

Author
AAP,
Publish Date
Wed, 14 Jan 2015, 7:23AM

Charlie Hebdo's new cover of a crying Prophet Mohammed above the slogan "All is Forgiven" has been reproduced by media around the world - but some Muslims have seen it as blasphemy.

The front page of the French satirical magazine - its first since many of its staff were slain in a jihadist attack last week that left 12 people dead - has been widely taken up by media in Western nations and in Latin America.

It shows Mohammed on a green background under the title "All is forgiven", holding up a sign saying "Je suis Charlie" ("I am Charlie").

Charlie Hebdo cartoonist Renald "Luz" Luzier said "I cried" after drawing it.
But Egypt's state-sponsored Islamic authority, Dar al-Ifta, quickly denounced it as "an unjustified provocation against the feelings of 1.5 billion Muslims".

Tabnak, a conservative online outlet in Iran, an Islamic republic notorious for throwing many journalists in jail, stormed that "Charlie Hebdo has again insulted the Prophet".

Major media in many Arab, and some African and Asian countries as well as Turkey, did not show the cover because many devout Muslims view any depiction of their prophet as forbidden.

Charlie Hebdo is to print up to three million copies of its new "survivors' issue", due out Wednesday -- far more than the usual 60,000 before last week's attack and a historic record for a French publication. Money from sales will go to the victims' families.

According to the French press distribution company MLP, the new issue will be available in many countries that previously never received the weekly, including Australia -- where strong demand was reported -- and in India, where there are around 170 million Muslims.

French, Italian and Turkish versions will be printed, while translations in three other languages -- English, Spanish and Arabic -- will be offered in electronic form, editor-in-chief Gerard Biard told a Paris news conference.

The issue will include caricatures by its five murdered cartoonists.

An advance copy obtained by AFP contained cartoons mocking the two Islamists who carried out the attack. One has them arriving in paradise and asking, "Where are the 70 virgins?"

"With the Charlie team, losers," comes the reply.

The remaining Charlie Hebdo staff who put the issue together said putting Mohammed on the cover showed they would not "cede" to extremists wanting to silence them.

Yet the fact that many non-European outlets did not reproduce the front page cartoon revealed unease about the magazine being elevated to a global champion for freedom of expression.

Major Arab broadcasters Al-Arabiya and Al-Jazeera did not show the cover in their reports.

Most French media outlets, including newspapers Le Monde, Liberation, Le Figaro, published images of the Charlie Hebdo cover.

The rector of Paris's mosque, Dalil Boubakeur, urged France's Muslims "to remain calm" over the cover "by avoiding emotional reactions... and respecting freedom of opinion".

The head of a big mosque in central eastern Paris, Hammad Hammami, voiced a similar stand. "We don't want to throw oil on the fire," he said. "We consider these caricatures to be acceptable. They are not degrading for the Prophet," unlike previous Charlie Hebdo cartoons.

Britain's The Independent newspaper was the only major daily in London to put the image in its print version. The BBC news website did not show it.

Almost none of the newspapers in Italy and in Russia carried the cover image.

The New York Times website reported on the Mohammed cover but provided readers only with a link to the site of the French newspaper Liberation. Major television networks also did not reproduce the cover.

The Wall Street Journal, though, did, and so did tabloids such as the New York Daily News.

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