Sep 20 - Muslims Angry at French for cartoon about Muhammad

(Reuters) - A French magazine ridiculed the Prophet Mohammad on Wednesday by portraying him nak3d in cartoons, threatening to fuel the anger of Muslims around the world who are already incensed by a California-made video depicting him as a lecherous fool.

The drawings in the satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo risked exacerbating a crisis that has seen the storming of U.S. and other Western embassies, the k!lling of the U.S. ambassador to Libya and a deadly [rip] b0mbing in Afghanistan.

Riot police were deployed to protect the paper's Paris offices after the issue hit news stands.

It featured several caricatures of the Prophet showing him nak3d in what the publishers said was an attempt to poke fun at the furor over the film. One, entitled "Mohammad: a star is born", depicted a bearded figure crouching over to display his buttocks and genitals.

The French government, which had urged the weekly not to print the cartoons, said it was shutting embassies and schools in 20 countries as a precaution on Friday, when protests sometimes break out after Muslim prayers.

Arab League Secretary-General Nabil Elaraby called the drawings outrageous but said those who were offended by them should "use peaceful means to express their firm rejection".

Tunisia's ruling Islamist party, Ennahda, condemned what it called an act of "aggression" against Mohammad but urged Muslims not to fall into a trap intended to "derail the Arab Spring and turn it into a conflict with the West".

In the northern Paris suburb of Sarcelles, one person was slightly hurt when two masked men threw a small explosive device through the window of a kosher supermarket. Police said it was too early to link the incident to the cartoons. One small local Muslim group filed a legal complaint against the weekly but there were no reports of reaction on the streets of France.

The posting on YouTube of a crude video, made in the United States and available on YouTube since July, that mocked Mohammad as a womanising buffoon has sparked protests in many countries, some of them deadly.

The U.S. envoy to Libya and three other Americans were k!lled in an attack in Benghazi, and U.S. and other foreign embassies were attacked in cities in Asia, Africa and the Middle East by furious Muslims.

Matthew Olsen, director of the U.S. government's National Counterterrorism Center, branded the Benghazi[..]ault a "terrorist attack" and said officials were examining the possibility that individuals involved in the attack may have links to al Qaeda, and particularly the affiliate group al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb.

INTERNATIONAL DEBATE

The furor has emerged as an issue in the U.S. presidential election campaign and sparked international debate over free speech, religion and the right to offend. Many Muslims consider any representation of Allah or the Prophet Mohammad blasphemous.

In Los Angeles, an actress who appeared in the video filed a lawsuit against a Coptic Christian man linked to the film, Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, accusing him of fraud and slander and asking that the film's trailer be removed from the Internet.

It was the first known civil lawsuit connected to the film that has circulated online as a 13-minute trailer, including under the title "Innocence of Muslims."

The actress, Cindy Lee Garcia, also named Google Inc and its YouTube unit as defendants. Garcia's lawsuit stated that she thought she was appearing in a desert adventure film, not a "hateful" production about the Muslim prophet.

The United States has condemned the content of the video while defending the right to free speech, and took a similar line on the French cartoons.

"We know that these images will be deeply offensive to many and have the potential to be inflammatory. But we've spoken repeatedly about the importance of upholding the freedom of expression that is enshrined in our constitution," White House spokesman Jay Carney told reporters.

"In other words, we don't question the right of something like this to be published, we just question the judgment behind the decision to publish it."

In the Lebanese city of Sidon, around 10,000 people joined a march organized by the Shi'ite group Hezbollah to protest against the film and the cartoons, shouting "Enough humiliation!" and "[rip] to America! [rip] to Israel!".

In Egypt, Essam Erian, acting head of the Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party, told Reuters: "We reject and condemn the French cartoons that dishonor the Prophet and we condemn any action that defames the sacred according to people's beliefs."

At the same time, rights groups demanded the release of a Coptic Christian computer science graduate who they said had been beaten up and arrested in Cairo on suspicion of re-posting the anti-Islam video online.

In France, a joint statement by Catholic bishop Michel Dubost and Mohammed Moussaoui, president of the French Muslim Council, defended the right to freedom of expression under the cherished French principles of "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity".

"But freedom endangers itself if it forgets fraternity and respect for everyone's equal right to dignity," they added.

French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius called the publication of the cartoons a provocation.

"We saw what happened last week in Libya and in other countries such as Afghanistan," he told a regular news conference. "We have to call on all to behave responsibly."

CALL FOR CAUTION

France's ambassador to Iran sent French citizens there a message urging them to exercise great caution, especially on Friday, and around diplomatic missions and places of worship.

But Charlie Hebdo's editor, Stephane Charbonnier, rejected the criticism. "We have the impression that it's officially allowed for Charlie Hebdo to attack the Catholic far-right but we cannot poke fun at fundamental Islamists," he said.

"It shows the climate. Everyone is driven by fear, and that is exactly what this small handful of extremists who do not represent anyone want: to make everyone afraid, to shut us all in a cave," he told Reuters.

One cartoon alluded to the scandal over a French magazine's publication of topless photos of the wife of Britain's Prince William. It showed a bare female torso topped by a beard with the caption "Riots in Arab countries after photos of Mrs Mohammad are published".

Charlie Hebdo is no stranger to controversy. Its Paris offices were fireb0mbed last November after it published a mocking caricature of Mohammad, and Charbonnier has been under police guard ever since.

Speaking outside his offices in an eastern neighborhood with many residents of North African origin, Charbonnier said he had not received any threats over the latest cartoons. In a message on its Twitter account, Charlie Hebdo said its website had been hacked, but referred readers to a blog it also uses.

In 2005, Danish cartoons of the Prophet sparked a wave of protests across the Muslim world in which at least 50 died.

France is already on alert for attacks by al Qaeda on French interests in West Africa.

A diplomatic source said this week that Paris had recently foiled attacks on economic and diplomatic targets and had credible evidence that more were planned.

"Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb is a direct and immediate threat," the source said.

Cartoons in French weekly fuel Mohammad furor | Reuters

Every group of Muslim extemists is Al Qeada, apparently. And they're still a threat...

Trolling at its finest

[pic] pretty much

as someone who is non-religious, i wish religious people could be more rational.

shouldnt having religion in your life make you less prone to violence and more willing to forgive?

throughout history it has been quite the opposite [pic]

Muslims are !!s for this !!, get that stick outta ur[..]es! Jews get clowned all the time by the whole !!in world u dont see them acting a fool... god damn [pic]

And France did not give one !! on this day... [pic]

trolling 101

thats actually not true. let a journalist or magazine or newspaper publish a caricature mocking the holocaust and they will be !!ed for life and their magazine or newspaper will be shut down. did you know that it is illegal to doubt the outrageously exaggerated holocaust numbers? so why does this freedom of speech not apply against jews? Add to that, if France is so concerned with the freedom of speech, then why is it illegal for Muslim women to practice their religion and wear headscarves in schools and Universities? this is some double standard !!

and another thing...tell me when you've ever seen muslim journalists mocking other religions' religious figures. and i'm not just talking about Christians and Jews, since as Muslims we believe in Jesus and Moses and respect them, but im talking about the religions that we dont recognize: buddhism, hinduism, scientology etc. we're not mocking budha or cows or astronauts, or any of that !!. so why do we have to be !!ed with? isn't it enough that our land is being pillaged, our people are being[..]d, our morals have been destroyed through the incessant corruption by western media? We have to be ok with our prophet being mocked too?

one final thing that i would like to point out: i don't condone the k!llings and the violence that have took place as a result of the riots and neither do the vast majority of islamic sheikhs. in fact, all of the sheikhs that i have personally heard, have urged everyone in attendance at Friday prayers to be patient and show restraint, and that the violence is not acceptable, unislamic, and unnecessary. They advise us to show our objection to the desecration of our prophet's name through peaceful means which are likely to be much more effective. What you are seeing, all this violence, these aren't devout muslims, these are thugs who would have just finished drinking a 40oz and then went to stir up some !! because "hey there's an excuse", particularly the "muslims" in France. Islam is a peaceful religion which is practiced by hotheaded, short tempered, aggressive middle easterners, africans and indians.

this!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!