France in embassy alert over Prophet Muhammad cartoons
Baku, September 20 (AZERTAC). Security has been increased at France`s interests abroad after a French satirical magazine published obscene cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad.
French embassies, consulates, cultural centers and schools in some 20 countries will be closed for the next few days as a precaution.
Government ministers voiced concern at the Charlie Hebdo cartoons but defended the freedom of the press.
Riot police have been deployed around the magazine`s offices in Paris.
The magazine has confirmed that its website has been attacked.
Its paper edition features caricatures which play on both the uproar in the Islamic world over an amateur video which mocks Islam and the row over the publication in France of topless photos of the Duchess of Cambridge.
A tenet of Islam bans the portrayal of its founder, the Prophet Muhammad.
Some 30 people have died in violent protests which erupted early last week over the Innocence of Muslims video, which was made in the United States.
The dead include the US ambassador to Libya, Christopher Stevens, and three other Americans, who died in Benghazi. The US and other Western embassies have come under attack in mainly Muslim countries.
"This is a disgraceful and hateful, useless and stupid provocation," Dalil Boubakeur, rector of the Paris Grand Mosque, told the Associated Press news agency before meeting Mr Valls.
Charlie Hebdo, known in France for its scatological cartoons, has caricatured other religious figures in the past, including a "Pope special" in 2008 which resulted in an unsuccessful court action accusing the magazine of inciting hate.
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