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France Bans Muslims from Protesting against Mohammad Cartoons

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PARIS, Sept 21 (Reuters) - France banned protests on Friday against cartoons published by a satirical weekly denigrating Islam's Prophet Mohammad as part of a security clamp-down while prayers took place across the Muslim world.

The country's Muslim population, drawn largely from ex-colonies in North and West Africa, shrugged off the controversy as imams in mosques denounced the pictures but urged their followers to remain calm.

The drawings have stoked a furore over an anti-Islam film made in California that has provoked sometimes violent protests in several Muslim countries, including attacks on U.S. and other Western embassies, the killing of the U.S. envoy to Libya and a suicide bombing in Afghanistan.

Interior Minister Manuel Valls said prefects had orders to prohibit any protest and to crack down if the ban was challenged.

"There will be strictly no exceptions. Demonstrations will be banned and broken up :tup:," he told a news conference in the southern port city of Marseille.

The main body representing Muslims in France appealed for calm as the weekly Charlie Hebdo put a new print run of the cartoons featuring a naked Prophet Mohammad on the news stands.

Mohammed Moussaoui, head of the French Muslim Council, described both the film and the cartoons as "acts of aggression" but urged French Muslims not to protest in the streets.

"I repeat the council's call not to protest. Any protest could be hijacked and counterproductive," he told radio RFI.

An estimated 8,000 Muslims gathered peacefully for Friday prayers at a temporary prayer hall in northern Paris set up in a former fire department depot. So many turned out that hundreds had to pray in the rain in the adjacent parking lot.

"This demonstrates that the vast majority of the Muslim community is not made up of extremists," said Abderahmane Dahmane, spokesman for the local association that runs the prayer hall, one of the largest in the Paris region.

"The majority will not play the game of the hotheads."

At prayers in the northeast Paris suburb of La Courneuve, delivery driver Hakim Ardjou, 42, also rejected violence.

"We just want our message to be heard: this sort of insult is a disgrace, but we will keep calm."

PUBLIC APPROVES PROTEST BAN

French embassies, schools and cultural centres in some 20 Muslim countries were closed on Friday, the Muslim day of prayer, in a precaution ordered by the French government.

French media showed footage of an embassy protected by soldiers and barbed wire in former French colony Tunisia, where the Islamist-led government has also banned protests over the cartoons.

Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said there had been anti-French demonstrations in Afghanistan, Egypt and Indonesia, but there were no incidents against French nationals.

"In a certain number of countries, the measures (closures) will be kept in place as a precaution on Saturday and Sunday," Fabius told journalists.

Police were on alert in the French capital after protests planned by some Muslim groups were banned.

Charlie Hebdo, an anti-establishment weekly whose Paris offices are under police protection, defied critics to rush out another run of the publication that sold out on Wednesday.

It says the cartoons are designed simply to poke fun at the uproar over the film and on Friday hit back at critics accusing it of deliberately stirring controversy to sell newspapers.

"If Charlie Hebdo wanted to make a quick buck, it would not produce Charlie Hebdo," it said on its Twitter feed.

The publication has a print run of around 70,000 but its Mohammad cartoons have made front-page news in a country which has both the largest Muslim and Jewish populations in Europe - an estimated five million Muslims and 600,000 Jews.

President Francois Hollande's government has sought to balance a cherished tradition of freedom of expression with security concerns, denouncing Charlie Hebdo as irresponsible.

"When you are free, in a country like ours, you always have to measure the impact of your words," French European Affairs Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said.

A survey by TNS Sofres for i-Tele news channel showed 58 percent thought freedom of expression was a fundamental right, and that "freedom to caricature" was part of that.

Yet an even higher 71 percent of the roughly 1,000 people interviewed on Thursday approved of the ban on protests against the cartoons. France has a proud tradition of street protest.

UPDATE 3-France bans protests over Prophet Mohammad cartoons | Reuters

Good Work by France. :tup:

This will Prevent Islamists from Burning Police Vehicles and Groping Female Officers.
 
Oh wait..where did the 'freedom of expression' thingy went now? :disagree:

same situations often arises Indian also, govt may ban public gatherings and meeting sighting security reasons.
But what protesters do is , if they want they will continue to gather , demonstrate their protest, police comes and assert them, they will corporate with assert , then either they will be freed by police or they will take a bail.All these will be in the media tomorrow as a topic and you get your public attention to the matter.
 
they did not do this to ban peaceful protests, they banned it because they get violence. This aint no Gandhian protest..lets be honest here. which country would want the kind of " protest" going on now? get real.

Oh wait..where did the 'freedom of expression' thingy went now? :disagree:

Freedom of expression to us is not to kill, burn and destroy...as we are seeing
 
What a barbaric and hypocritical thing to do! France protects the freedom of expression of cartoonists but they ban muslims from expressing their opinions. Somebody needs to tell French goverment that in a fair and free society you can't just ban people from expressing themselves specially when you are protecting others for insulting the said people just to start a controversy and increase their fame.

Even my family sometimes thing that I am quite radical in my views of religions but this has nothing to with religion. This is pure opression and hypocricy on the part of French goverment. Shame on them and shame on some members here for supporting this action just becuase of their need of trolling and hate against Pakistan and muslims in general.
 
What a barbaric and hypocritical thing to do! France protects the freedom of expression of cartoonists but they ban muslims from expressing their opinions. Somebody needs to tell French goverment that in a fair and free society you can't just ban people from expressing themselves specially when you are protecting others for insulting the said people just to start a controversy and increase their fame.

Even my family sometimes thing that I am quite radical in my views of religions but this has nothing to with religion. This is pure opression and hypocricy on the part of French goverment. Shame on them and shame on some members here for supporting this action just becuase of their need of trolling and hate against Pakistan and muslims in general.

deno my sis u r a mod now nice...
 
Their land, their rules, whatever they do..they have my vote. Immigrants should not preach how to rule a nation. :tup:

Dude. maybe you are unaware, they are not immigrants but citizens of France so it is nothing to do with immigrants. They put ban on Muslims which is best example of hypocrisy and dual faced politics and act of discrimination and violence of freedom of speech.

They showed their hate to Muslims but support devil's representative. I know they used to disgrace their own prophet but it doesn't mean that Muslims will let to do so.

As a wise government they should take measures not to let any religious conflict and hate in their country.
 

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