Iran responds to caricatures with 'I love Muhammad' campaign
Iranians have rallied around the hashtag campaign "I love Muhammad" on social media following Charlie Hebdo's printing of another caricature of the Prophet Muhammad.
Iranians are responding to Charlie Hebdo publishing an image of the Prophet Muhammad after the Jan. 7 terrorist attack with their own “I love Muhammad” hashtag campaign on social media.
Over the last two weeks, Charlie Hebdo has been a popular topic on social media, since two terrorists affiliated with extremist groups killed 12 members of the French satirical magazine's staff in Paris. The two perpetrators claimed that the massacre was in retaliation for the magazine's publication of cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad.
In Iran, many were angry with the terrorists for spreading the idea that Islam is a violent religion. Many Iranians believed that the damage from the terrorist attack to Islam is much worse than the damage caused by the Charlie Hebdo cartoons, and that killing is never the right way to confront such actions. Iranian officials also condemned the Paris attacks. On Jan. 9, conservative cleric Ahmad Khatami, Tehran's Friday prayer leader, said, “We strongly condemn the terrorist attack in France and believe that Islam does not allow the killing of innocent people, be it in Paris, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Pakistan or Afghanistan.”
After the attack, Charlie Hebdo announced that it would continue publication, but its latest issue was different, because of the timing and the cartoon they chose to publish on the magazine's front page. Charlie Hebdo's staff told the world that their front-page caricature would be of the Prophet Muhammad, who's beloved by 1.5 billion people around the world.
