Muslims decry French Mohammad cartoons as new insult

Muslim leaders criticised a French magazines publication of cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad on Wednesday as another Western insult to their faith and urged Frances government to take firm action against it.

"We reject and condemn the French cartoons that dishonour the Prophet and we condemn any action that defames the sacred according to peoples beliefs," the acting head of Egypts Muslim Brotherhoods Freedom and Justice Party, Essam Erian, said.

The cartoons were featured in the French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo. Its 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.

Their publication follows widespread outrage and violent anti-Western protests in many Muslim countries in Africa and Asia in the past week over an anti-Muslim film posted on the Internet.

Erian said the French judiciary should deal with the issue as firmly as it had handled the case against the magazine which published topless pictures of Britains Duchess of Cambridge, the wife of Prince William.

"If the case of Kate (the duchess) is a matter of privacy, then the cartoons are an insult to a whole people. The beliefs of others must be respected," he said.

Erian also spoke out against any violent reaction from Muslims but said peaceful protests were justified.

Mahmoud Ghozlan, spokesman for the Muslim Brotherhood, welcomed French government criticism of the cartoons but said that French law should deal with insults against Islam in the same way as it deals with Holocaust denial.

"If anyone doubts the Holocaust happened, they are imprisoned, yet if anyone insults the Prophet, his companions or Islam, the most (

Reuters