Prophet Cartoon Shows Up in Czech City
The posters apparently had been hung Tuesday night in downtown Brno, 125 miles southeast of Prague. They reportedly were signed by an unknown group named Friends of Freedom of Speech.
The ministry condemned all actions aimed at inciting religious, racial or ethnic hatred.
"Prophet Muhammad did not know any bombs during his time," Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg said. "Such posters are for me ... a sign of the intolerance and aggressiveness of those who devised them."
The drawing is one of 12 cartoons published in a Danish newspaper that enraged many Muslims in early 2006, sparking deadly riots around the world. Leading Danish newspapers reprinted the cartoon showing Muhammad wearing a bomb-shaped turban on Feb. 13 to show their commitment to freedom of speech.
Brno's Islamic community did not plan protests, said Muneeb Hassan Alrawi, head of the Islamic Foundation, which is in charge of the local mosque, the first in the Czech Republic.
Alrawi called the movie posters "deplorable" and said they were meant "to provoke Muslims."
"We don't plan to make them happy by protesting," Alrawi said of the people behind the posters.
Authorities removed the posters Wednesday, the CTK news agency reported from Brno.
It was not clear who put them up, and local police were investigating if that violated the law, police spokeswoman Andrea Prochazkova said.
"This has nothing to do with freedom of speech," Schwarzenberg said.
March 19, 2008
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