PARIS,
February 2, 2006 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – The
managing editor of the daily France Soir has been sacked for
republishing blasphemous cartoons of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH).
"We
express our regrets to the Muslim community and all people who were
shocked by the publication" of the cartoons," Egyptian-born
Raymond Lakah, the paper's owner, said in a statement to Agence
France-Presse (AFP).
Lakah,
a Christian, decided to "remove Jacques Lefranc as managing director of the
publication as a powerful sign of respect for the intimate beliefs and
convictions of every individual."
The
Paris daily reprinted on Wednesday, February 1, twelve controversial
cartoons depicting and ridiculing Prophet Muhammad.
It
claimed the move was only to illustrate the controversy sparked by
their initial publication in Denmark's Jyllands-Posten paper in
September.
The
cartoons included portrayals of a man assumed to be the Prophet
wearing a time-bomb shaped turban and showed him as a knife-wielding
nomad flanked by shrouded women.
The
caricatures, which were later reprinted by a Norwegian magazine,
triggered an outrage across the Muslim world.
Jyllands-Posten
has recently said the cartoons "were not in violation of Danish
law but have irrefutably offended many Muslims, and for that we
apologize."
Ban
In
a related development, Morocco banned all sales of France Soir
on its territory.
"Wednesday's
edition of France Soir was banned from the Moroccan territory
because of the publication by the French newspaper of cartoons of
Prophet Muhammad on the fallacious pretext of freedom of the
press," the Ministry of Communications said in a statement to
AFP.
It
said that the ban was a reaction to "the intentionally offensive
character (of the cartoons) to the Prophet and the fact that they were
a blatant and gratuitous provocation for the beliefs of Muslims."
The
reprinting of the insulting cartoons by France Soir, a once
successful daily which is now fighting to survive, has drawn
condemnation from the sizable Muslim minority in France, the largest
in Europe.
Leaders
of the minority, estimated at some six million, have vowed to sue the
daily over the insulting drawings.
