MANAMA, January 18 (Sputnik) – Members of the Shura Council, the upper house of Bahrain's National Assembly, have strongly condemned the renewed publishing of anti-Islamic caricatures by the French Charlie Hebdo magazine, which has become the target of a recent terrorist attack.
"The Consultative [Shura] Council rejects any form of mockery of religious symbols and calls on the French daily to stop publishing caricatures on the Prophet Muhammad," a Council statement, obtained by RIA Novosti Saturday, says.
The Paris office of the Charlie Hebdo satirical magazine was attacked on January 7 by three gunmen who killed 12 people. Two terrorists responsible for the attack were killed later during a police raid. The third suspect turned himself in.
A rally was held in the French capital after the attack with 40 top world officials, including British Prime Minister David Cameron, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, having showed up for the march to express their support for freedom of speech and commemorate the killed Charlie Hebdo journalists.
The French magazine is known for its cartoons mocking political and religious figures, among them the Prophet Muhammad, with the cover of the new Charlie Hebdo edition, out on Wednesday, also depicting the Prophet who is holding a sign saying "Je suis Charlie" ("I am Charlie").
Angelique Kourounis, a journalist and producer working for Charlie Hebdo, told Sputnik radio Wednesday that the satirical magazine has always pursued a secularist policy and that its staff is multiconfessional.
