PARIS, March 18, 2006 (IslamOnline.net) – French Muslims backed Saturday, March 18, a draft law criminalizing blasphemy, which has been put forward by an MP for the ruling Union for Popular Movement party (UMP).

"The Union of French Islamic Organizations (UOIF) is planning a campaign to support the UMP motion," UOIF head in the heavily Muslim populated Saint Denis district, told IslamOnline.net.

He said representatives of key Muslim organizations in France have recently met with the head of the UMP's parliamentary bloc to support the initiative and also called on other parties to rally behind the motion, which calls for amending an article in the press law better known as Law July 29, 1881.

Revealing the bill last week, Marc Bouraud, the ruling party's MP for the Lez Avignon Villeneuve district in southeast France, said that free speech should not be exploited to blaspheme against a certain religion.

He told reporters that France should not tolerate those who incite hatred and criminalize any speech and caricatures blasphemous to any religion.

The MP said he was driven by the Danish cartoons crisis, which "exposed the fragile link between freedom of expression and freedom of belief and thought."

The motion says that "any speech, yelling, written or printed threat, or drawings attacking a certain religion is considered blasphemy that must be punished."

It needs the approval of 15 deputies to be debated by parliament.

Last September, Denmark's mass circulation daily Jyllands-Posten ran 12 cartoons lampooning Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him).

One of the cartoons showed the prophet wearing a bomb-shaped turban and another showed him as a knife-wielding nomad flanked by shrouded women.

The offensive cartoons were later reprinted in many European dailies and weeklies, including French France-Soir and Charlie Hebdo.

Bouraud has come under mounting pressures from UMP rightists to get him withdraw the motion, IOL's correspondent says.

The MP has already received letters of protest, demanding him to backtrack on his statements.

French Muslims, who make up five million people of France's population, have taken to the streets of Saint Denis on February 11 to peacefully protest cartoons and rising Islamophobia.

A recent French poll found that 54% believe the two papers were wrong to re-print the caricature, and 72% saying they understood the indignation they prompted among Muslims.

Earlier this month, French Muslims leaders lodged a protest with the European Court of Human Rights over the publication by the two French papers of the cartoons.

The Muslim world's two main political bodies -- the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) and the Arab League -– are seeking a UN resolution, backed by possible sanctions, to protect religions in response to the furor.

EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana and European External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner have further suggested that the EU and the OIC could draft a joint UN resolution calling for religious tolerance.

Danish Muslims said Friday, March 17, they were now planning to take the publication of the blasphemous cartoons to the world body.