Protests publishing caricature of Holy prophet by Charlie Hebdo
By Zaidul Haque, TwoCircles.net,
Kolkata: The Bengal Imam Association held a demonstration at the French Consulate here protesting the publishing of caricature of the Holy Prophet Mohammad (PBUH) by Charlie Hebdo, the French satire magazine.
About 1,000 people from and around the metropolis attended the gathering held on Thursday at the French Consulate here, when Association chairman Mohammad Yahia attacked the publishers of Charlie Hebdo and at the same time, said the Association criticized the terrorist responsible for the massacre of 12 people including Charlie Hebdo journalists.
Protest demonstration in front of France Consulate in Kolkata on Thursday, Organised by Bengal Imams Association.
“After the incident, the motive of Charlie Hebdo is also condemnable. They are continuously publishing cartoon of Prophet Mohammad (PBUH) to create hatred against Islam. This is not freedom of the newspaper.”
He demanded an immediate stop to any cartoon about the Prophet or Islam in any newspaper published in France and said, “What is happing in the name of freedom of media in France and as advocated by the Western people is actually hateful campaign against Islam.”
He further dared the Western world to “make a cartoon about the atrocities of Israel troops and forces that killed 13 journalists in Gaza strips. In same way, Palestine cartoonist Nazi Al Ali was killed in London. Even Braivik killed 77 teenagers in 2011. But then, Charlie Hebdo was totally silent.”
However, Yahia said, “Terrorist have no religion. So, accusing the terrorist does not mean his religion. We hate terror outfits but respect all religions.”
“After Paris incident, Muslims of France are scared of harassment by anti-Islamic people,” he added.
Before submitting the Memorandum of Imams Association to the Consulate of France in Kolkata on Thursday.
Nazia Ilahi Khan, chairman of RTI and Anti-Corruption Cell, said, maligning the holy prophets of any religion is the cognizable offence. He blamed to the Charlie Hebdo authorities of getting publicity by as they published the abusive caricature of respected person of the Muslim followers. “Government of France should ban any kind of cartoon to malign the any religion.”
Participants at the demonstration held placards with the slogans: ‘We love the Prophet, We love all Religion’, ‘Atankvaad ka koi dharam nahi (Terrorism has no religion)’ and ‘Islam stands for global brotherhood.’
Mainuddin Shams, Muhammad Ali, Shikh leader Sukhnandan Sing Ahluwalia and many others distinguished persons along with Imams participated in the demonstration.
After the demonstration, a delegation on behalf of Bengal Imam’s Association submitted a memorandum to the Counsel office of France here. The Association has written that “Freedom of thoughts, speech and freedom of expression is inalienable part of human rights; as such this right cannot be hijacked either by the state or by citizens. Freedom, specifically, says that everyone must honour other religion and must abstain from uttering or making gestures either oral or in writing which are likely to hurt the religious sentiment of other religious community.
The tragic Charlie Hebdo massacre cannot be justified on any reasonable grounds. It is normally expected that angry people should have first taken recourse to law but instead they resorted to violent killing of several people against the tenets of Islam.”