DDHK.ORG - Following the opening of the trial of 14 terror attack defendants against the Charlie Hebdo editorial office in Paris 5 years ago, the French weekly satirical magazine reprinted the cartoon of the Prophet Muhammad. The decision has drawn protests from many circles. The watchdog body fighting extremism at Al-Azhar University, Egypt, even condemned the decision.
"The criminal urge to republish this offensive cartoon instills further hate speech and inflames the emotions of loyal religious followers," read a statement by the Observatory to Combat Extremism of Al-Azhar on its official Facebook page.
The controversial decision to reprint the caricature, said the institution at one of the world's foremost Islamic universities, was "a provocation that nearly two billion Muslims around the world cannot justify".
Al-Azhar University is the most important religious institution for Sunni Muslims. In Islamic tradition, depictions of the Prophet Muhammad in magazines are considered a form of abuse and blasphemy.
Not only condemning the reprint of the Prophet's cartoon, in his statement on Wednesday (2/9/2020), Al-Azhar also condemned the terror attack on Charlie Hebdo's office, five years ago. They claim that Islam hates every act of violence.
At that time, brothers Said and Cherif Kouachi stormed the editorial office of Charlie Hebdo in eastern Paris on January 7, 2015. Twelve people, including some of France's most famous cartoonists, were killed. A day later, Cherif's colleague, Amedy Coulibaly, killed a 12-year-old policeman named Clarissa Jean-Philippe while on duty carrying out a traffic check in Montrouge, outside Paris.
Coulibaly continued his terror by killing four Jewish men while being held hostage at the Hyper Cacher supermarket in Paris on January 9. He created a video explaining that the three attacks were coordinated and carried out on behalf of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) terrorist group. (source: CNN Indonesia) [DDHK. ORG]
