Ayatollah Tweets: France Allows Mohammed Cartoons But Outlaws Holocaust Denial
By Patrick Goodenough | October 29, 2020 | 4:29am EDT
Link:
https://www.cnsnews.com/article/int...weets-france-allows-mohammed-cartoons-outlaws
Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. (Photo by khamenei.ir/AFP via Getty Images)
(CNSNews.com) – Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei waded into the controversy over “Islamophobia” in France on Wednesday, urging young French citizens to ask President Emmanuel Macron why he approves of cartoons lampooning Mohammed but outlaws Holocaust denial.
“Ask your President why he supports insulting God’s Messenger in the name of freedom of expression,” Khamenei tweeted. “Does freedom of expression mean insulting, especially a sacred personage? Isn’t this stupid act an insult to the reason of the [people] who elected him?”
“The next question to ask is: why is it a crime to raise doubts about the Holocaust? Why should anyone who writes about such doubts be imprisoned while insulting the Prophet (pbuh) is allowed?”
PBUH stands for “peace be upon him.” Many Muslims view as blasphemous any image depicting the 7th century founder of their faith, whose birthday Sunnis celebrate on Thursday.
France is one of more than a dozen countries in Europe with laws against denying the Holocaust. Khamenei has himself called into question the historical record of the Nazis’ murder of six million European Jews, and Iran has held three Holocaust-themed cartoon contests since 2006.
The ayatollah posted the tweet on the same day as senators questioned Twitter’s CEO about dictators posting provocative content on the platform with impunity. Khamenei has 837,000 followers on his official English-language Twitter account, up from just over half a million a year ago. He also has accounts in Farsi, Arabic, French, Spanish, Russian, German, Hindi and Urdu.
Macron has defended the right to publish or display cartoons mocking Mohammed in officially secular France, after a Chechen refugee this month beheaded a teacher, Samuel Paty, who had used such an image in a classroom lesson dealing with freedom of speech. The cartoon controversy re-erupted last month when the satirical publication Charlie Hebdo published sketches to mark the trial of 14 people accused of helping terrorists who attacked its offices in 2015, killing 12 people.
As Macron led a televised memorial service last week for Paty, at least two cities in the south of the country projected large images of the cartoons onto the sides of buildings, along with pictures of the slain teacher. France is home to Europe’s biggest Muslim community.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan at the weekend questioned Macron’s mental state, prompting Paris to withdraw its ambassador. After Erdogan joined calls for a boycott of French goods, the European Union’s executive commission warned that Turkey – as aspirant member – risked moving even further away from the bloc.
‘Relaunch the Crusades’
The kerfuffle deepened after Charlie Hebdo, which is known for lampooning figures of all religious and political persuasions, published an unflattering caricature of Erdogan.
A copy of French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo in a Paris store features on its cover a caricature of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. (Photo by Marc Piasecki/Getty Images)
Turkey’s Anadolu news agency reported Wednesday that the Ankara prosecutor’s office has opened an official investigation into the cartoon, and Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said Turkey would seek international legal action as well.
For his part Erdogan condemned what he called a “disgusting attack.” He told his Islamist AK party’s lawmakers on Wednesday that Western countries attacking Islam want to “relaunch the Crusades.”
The incident marks a striking confrontation between a ribald and provocative Western publication and a government notoriously sensitive to slights against its autocratic leader.
The Turkish penal code states that, “Any person who insults the President of the Republic shall be sentenced to a penalty of imprisonment for a term of one to four years.” A provision relates to criminal proceedings that can be brought against non-citizens for offenses committed to Turkey’s detriment in a foreign country.
French Muslim representatives have themselves pushed back against accusations that the country is Islamophobic, but the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) is nonetheless urging Muslim Americans not to visit the country.
“France cannot extol the virtues of free speech while punishing French Muslims for engaging in free speech, nor can France claim to be a beacon of freedom while calling on dictatorships to ban their Muslim citizens from boycotting French products,” said executive director Nihad Awad, whose organization calls itself the nation’s biggest Muslim civil rights and advocacy group.
“Everyone in France should have the right to practice their religion, and everyone around the world has the right to decide which products they purchase,” he said. “That right includes avoiding those products that provide economic support for a nation engaged in the stereotyping and marginalization of an entire faith community through bigoted political rhetoric and discriminatory policies.”
