Sudanese scholars call for protests against Charlie Hebdo

January 15, 2015 (KHARTOUM) – The Sudan Religious Scholars Committee (RSC) has called for a protest after Friday prayers to condemn the publication of a new cartoon by the French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo.

In its first edition since the last week’s attack that left 12 people dead, Charlie Hebdo published on the front cover a cartoon showing the prophet Muhammad shedding a tear and holding up a sign reading “Je suis Charlie” to express his sympathy with the dead journalists.

Charlie Hebdo columnist Zineb El Rhazoui told BBC Radio 4 on Thursday that the cover was a call to forgive the terrorists who killed her colleagues, adding “We don’t feel any hate to them. We know that the struggle is not with them as people, but the struggle is with an ideology”.

RSC chairman Mohamed Osman Salih said on Thursday the demonstration will start after the end of Friday prayers from Khartoum Grand Mosque, adding there is a “clear border between freedom and abuse of religious beliefs”.

The Sudanese main clerical authority last week condemned the deadly attack carried out in Paris by two terrorists and called for the respect of religions.

Last week, a University of Tennessee associate professor of law, Robert C. Blitt, called on the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) and its members to compensate Charlie Hebdo and the victims’ families.

in an opinion piece published by USA Today, Blitt said calls by the OIC and Arab League countries and Arab to prohibition on defamation of religion “have emboldened extremists to take protection of Islam to the next level”.

He further called the Muslim world to embrace the promotion of tolerance, “including sponsorship of moderation and tolerance efforts in mosques and madrassas (religious schools) globally”.

(ST)