French weekly publishes Prophet cartoons

Paris: French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo published cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad on Wednesday, a decision criticised by the French authorities which sent riot police to protect the magazine’s offices. The magazine’s front cover showed an Orthodox Jew pushing a turbaned figure in a wheelchair and several caricatures of the Prophet were included on its inside pages, including some of him naked. [caption id=“attachment_461125” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Pic used for representational purposes only.[/caption] The publication comes in the midst of widespread outrage over an anti-Muslim film posted on the Internet. French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius criticised Charlie Hebdo’s decision as a provocation and said he had ordered security beefed up at French diplomatic offices in the Muslim world. Charlie Hebdo’s Paris offices were fire bombed last November after it published a mocking caricature of Mohammad. In 2005, Danish cartoons of the Prophet sparked a wave of violent protests across the Muslim world that killed at least 50 people. Reuters