Magazine mockery inflames Islam row

The move by the weekly Charlie Hebdo followed days of violent protests from Asia to Africa against the film “Innocence of Muslims” and turned France into a potential target of Muslim rage.

Up to now, American government sites have drawn the most anger since the film was produced privately there.

Violence linked to the amateurish movie, which portrays the prophet as a fraud, a womaniser and a child molester, has killed at least 30 people in seven countries, including the American ambassador to Libya.

The French government immediately shut down the French Embassy and the French school in Tunisia, which saw deadly film-related protests at the US Embassy there last week.

In the southern Lebanese port city of Tyre, tens of thousands marched through the streets , chanting “Oh America, you are God’s enemy!”

Other developments included:

* The French Foreign Ministry issued a travel warning urging French citizens in the Muslim world to exercise “the greatest vigilance”, avoiding public gatherings and “sensitive buildings”.

* Several hundred lawyers protesting over the movie forced their way into an embassy area in Pakistan’s capital.

* The United States temporarily closed its consulate in an Indonesian city because of similar demonstrations.

* Hundreds protested the film in Sri Lanka’s capital, burning effigies of President Barack Obama.

The French magazine’s action plunged France – which has western Europe’s largest Muslim population – into a new debate over the limits of free speech in a modern democracy.

A lawsuit was filed against Charlie Hebdo hours after the issue hit news-stands, the Paris prosecutor’s office said. It would not say who filed it. The magazine also said its website had been hacked.

France’s Prime Minister said freedom of expression is guaranteed, but cautioned that it “should be exercised with responsibility and respect”.

Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius warned that Charlie Hebdo could be throwing “oil on the fire”, but said it’s up to the courts to decide whether the magazine went too far.

The magazine’s crude cartoons played off the film and ridiculed the violent reaction to it. Riot police took up positions outside the offices, which were firebombed last year after an edition that mocked radical Islam.

Charlie Hebdo’s chief editor, who uses the name Charb and has been under police protection for a year, defended the cartoons.

“Mohammed isn’t sacred to me,” he said.“I don’t blame Muslims for not laughing at our drawings. I live under French law; I don’t live under Koranic law.”

Charb said he had no regrets and felt no responsibility for any violence.

“I’m not the one going into the streets with stones and Kalashnikovs,” he said.

“We’ve had 1,000 issues and only three problems, all after front pages about radical Islam.”

The man who drew the caricatures, known as Luz, was defiant.

“We treat the news like journalists. Some use cameras, some use computers. For us, it’s a paper and pencil,” he said. “A pencil is not a weapon. It’s just a means of expression.”

Government authorities and Muslim leaders urged calm.

“This is a disgraceful and hateful, useless and stupid provocation,” Dalil Boubakeur, rector of the Grand Paris Mosque, said. “(But) we are not Pavlov’s animals to react at each insult.”

A small-circulation weekly, Charlie Hebdo often draws attention for ridiculing sensitivity around the Mohammed.

It was acquitted in 2008 by a Paris appeals court of “publicly abusing a group of people because of their religion” following a complaint by Muslim associations.

The debate about the limits of free speech spread to neighbouring Germany.

“I call on all those, especially those who rightly invoke the right of freedom of speech, to also act responsibly,” Foreign minister Guido Westerwelle said.