French paper publishes “gay Mohammed” cartoon
A newspaper based in Paris has published an issue this week depicting two men kissing on its front cover, after saying they had invited the Prophet Mohammed to edit.
Last week, the Charlie Hebdo offices in north-east Paris were firebombed after they announced they had invited the prophet to guest-edit an issue of the publication.
The US gossip site Gawker called the figure on the satirical Charlie Hebdo’s front page a “gay Mohammed”.
The caption on this week’s cartoon reads “Love is stronger than hate”.
The paper had provoked anger in 2007 in the Muslim community after it reprinted Danish cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed in 2007. A French court dismissed the charge of seeking to incite hatred.
The Turkish hacker collective Akincilar took over the paper’s website temporarily and left a message saying: “You keep abusing Islam’s almighty Prophet with disgusting and disgraceful cartoons using excuses of freedom of speech.
“Be God’s Curse On You! We Will be Your Curse on Cyber World!”
Charlie Hebdo was founded in 1961.
