[JURIST] Pakistani lawmakers on Thursday passed a resolution and rallied outside parliament to protest the publication of images of Islam’s Prophet Muhammad in French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo [media website, in French], which was attacked by extremists last week. Pakistan and other Muslim nations have condemned last week’s attack, which killed 12 people at the magazine’s office in Paris, but also condemn the publication of the cartoon image of the Prophet Muhammed. As Islam generally forbids depicting the Prophet Muhammed, many Muslims consider the images blasphemous. Pakistan Religious Affairs Minister Sardar Mohammad Yousuf said the lawmakers unanimously adopted the resolution condemning publication of the images, which also condemned violence under any pretext. The resolution, mostly symbolic, will be sent to all foreign missions in the country and the UN to register Pakistan’s protest against the images.

Caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad have sparked controversy across the globe. This week a Turkish court banned access [JURIST report] to websites showing the cover of the Charlie Hebdo magazine that depicts the Prophet Muhammed. In 2012 a Norwegian court convicted [JURIST report] two men accused of planning an attack against a Danish newspaper that published a cartoon of the Prophet Muhammad, becoming the first conviction under Norway’s anti-terror laws. In May 2010 the Pakistan Telecommunications Authority [official website] ordered [JURIST report] Internet service providers to block social networking site Facebook in response to a competition created by a group of the website’s members entitled “Draw Muhammad Day.” In 2007 a French court cleared [JURIST report] Charlie Hebdo magazine and director Philippe Val of defamation in the prior year’s republication of caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad originally published in a Danish newspaper in 2005. Then French Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy prepared a statement defending the right of the newspaper to publish the cartoons that the defense read during opening statements [JURIST report].