News - Yemen: Yemen’s Foreign Ministry strongly condemned the French weekly magazine Charlie Hebdo’s abuse of Islamic religious figures and symbols from time to time by publishing offensive cartoons. The most recent of which was the publication of inappropriate cartoons of an Islamic figure represented by Ayatollah Sayyed Ali Khamenei, who is considered a global Islamic authority.

“The French weekly magazine Charlie Hebdo is following in the footsteps of the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten, which published cartoons insulting to Islam,” the Ministry of Foreign Affairs confirmed in a statement issued on Tuesday. “This leads to conflict, hatred and enmity between peoples and religions.”

It pointed out that this will have a negative impact on the European continent, especially in France. It called on the French government to assume its responsibility not to exploit the right to expression and freedom of opinion, offending religious figures and sanctities, and to avoid double standards in the use of the values of freedom.

The statement stressed that the concepts of personal freedom and freedom of expression are at stake.

“Political differences between the Islamic Republic of Iran and a number of Western countries over the Iranian nuclear file should not be linked to include the extent of insulting national and religious symbols,” it added.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs urged the French government and European governments to take serious steps to prevent the bad exploitation of the concepts of freedom of expression to spread discord, hatred and wars.

It called on the United Nations Human Rights Council to condemn what Charlie Hebdo had done, and to start discussing how to protect human rights values and freedom from misuse of them for political and other reasons, and this is one of the most important motives that called for the establishment of the Human Rights Council in 2005.

On Thursday, the Iranian Foreign Ministry decided to shut down a Tehran-based French archaeological and historical institute in protest against the French weekly magazine Charlie Hebdo’s move to insult the top religious authority of the Islamic Republic.

The Institut Français de Recherche, which is part of the cultural wing of the French embassy, used to study ancient Persian antiquities. 

The move comes after the Iranian ministry decried Charlie Hebdo’s profane move as an indication that Zionism has utilized the media to act against Islam and promote hatred and division among human beings.

Iran’s Foreign Ministry condemned, in the strongest terms, the French magazine’s decision to publish several insulting cartoons in a special issue later this week. The controversial right-wing magazine had in early December announced a competition for producing the cartoons.

It said such an offensive move by the notorious magazine amounts to the violation of the recognized moral norms, barbaric desecration of religious sanctities, a sacrilegious move against the political and religious authorities, and an offense against the administrative symbols and national values of Iranians.

French ambassador to Tehran Nicolas Roche was summoned on January 4 by the Iranian Foreign Ministry in protest at the insulting cartoons.

The French ambassador said he would convey Iran’s protest to his respective country.

Yemen France Iran