A hundred demonstrators protested Thursday, September 3 against the last one of
Charlie Hebdo
, burning the French flag, while other marches are planned for Friday in Pakistan, where the question of blasphemy is inflammatory.
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Protesters gathered in the city of Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistani-controlled Kashmir.
They shouted slogans such as "
Stop barking, French dogs
", or "
Stop Charlie Hebdo
".
"
The Pakistani government should immediately cut off diplomatic relations with France,
" said one of them, Mohammad Zaman, a cleric.
The demonstration ended without violence, after a tricolor flag was trampled and then set on fire.
Several other demonstrations are planned after the Friday prayers, including one in Lahore (East) of the extremist Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) party, whose fight against blasphemy is the main political weapon.
The French Embassy in Pakistan called on its nationals to "
stay away from any gathering
" and "
avoid all travel
" on Friday.
Thousands of Pakistanis demonstrated in 2015 after the cartoons were published.
An AFP photographer was notably shot and wounded in front of the French consulate in Karachi (South), where the protest turned into a confrontation.
Second most populous Muslim country
Blasphemy is a very sensitive issue in Pakistan, the second most populous Muslim country with nearly 220 million people, where even unproven allegations of offending Islam can lead to assassinations and lynchings.
"
The published cartoons have shocked the feelings of millions of Muslims,
" observed Foreign Ministry Shah Mahmood Qureshi, who hopes "for
the translation in court
" of "those
responsible for this despicable act.
"
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The acquittal in October 2018 of Christian Asia Bibi, who spent more than eight years on death row for blasphemy, which she has always denied, prompted violent marches across Pakistan.
The trial of the jihadist attack on Charlie Hebdo, which killed 12 on January 7, 2015, followed by attacks that targeted a policewoman in Montrouge and a kosher supermarket that month, opened in Paris on Wednesday.
Charlie Hebdo
has decided to republish the cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad which had made him a target, and provoked sometimes deadly demonstrations in several Muslim countries.
The representation of the prophets is strictly prohibited by Sunni Islam.
Ridiculing or insulting the Prophet Muhammad is punishable by death in some Muslim countries, including Pakistan.
