News Agencies – December 7, 2012
Two Muslim organizations launched legal proceedings against French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, accusing it of inciting racial hatred after it published provocative cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed. The allegations concern cartoons that caricatured the Prophet, including two drawings which show him naked, published at a time, on September 19, when violent anti-Western protests were flaring across the Muslim world in response to an US anti-Islam amateur film. The Algerian Democratic Union for Peace and Progress (RDAP) and the Organization of Arab Union are claiming a total of €780,000 in costs and damages. According to the complainants’, the drawings were “damaging to the honour and reputation of the Prophet Mohammed and the Muslim community”.
Thousands of extra copies of the weekly had to be ordered after the publications usual print-run of 75,000 sold out within hours of going on sale. The first hearing in the case has been scheduled for January 29 at a court in Paris.
