Asia

Two Foreigners Detained in South Korea for Posting Threats on French Embassy Wall, Reports Say

TOKYO (Sputnik) - Seoul police have arrested two foreign nationals for posting flyers with threats on the wall of the French embassy in South Korea, media reported on Monday.
Sputnik

According to the official Yonhap news agency, the two 25-year-old suspects, whose names and nationality have not been disclosed, have been accused of posting five flyers with Islam-related slogans on the embassy wall in central Seoul on 1 November.

The police "are investigating the relationship between the two suspects, their motives and possible connection to terrorism", Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency chief Jang Ha-yeon said, as quoted by the media outlet.

Jang added that the police were considering the issue of enhancing the security of other foreign diplomatic missions in the South Korean capital.

The report comes as France is in the midst of national dismay over the growing Islamic threat in the wake of the recent terrorist attacks that occurred in the European nation last month. On 16 October, a French teacher was beheaded by a radicalised teen on the outskirts of Paris for using cartoons depicting Islamic prophet Mohammad for educational purposes. Another attack took place in Nice on 29 October, in which an Islamist killed three people in a Catholic cathedral.

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French President Emmanuel Macron declared that the nation was under terrorist attack, boosted security across the French mainland and ordered stronger counter-terrorism measures to curb the Islamist threat.

The president also expressed support for the use of drawings depicting prophet Mohammad as a manifestation of freedom of speech following the brutal murder of the teacher. Macron's speech outraged leaders of Islamic countries, as well as Muslim minorities worldwide, who found it insulting to the religion, as cartoons are forbidden in Islam.

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