Russia raps Charlie Hebdo for crash cartoons
Russia has slammed as blasphemy cartoons published by a French magazine depicting a recent crash of a Russian passenger plane in Egypt, which killed 224 civilians.
Spokesman for the Kremlin Dmitry Peskov told journalists on Friday that Charlie Hebdo’s mockery of the incident, which occurred in Egypt’s Sinai on Saturday, had nothing to do with freedom of expression.
“In our country, we can sum this up in a single word: sacrilege,” Peskov said, adding, “This has nothing to do with democracy or self-expression. It is abomination.”
He said, however, that Russia would not file an official complaint over the issue.
An affiliate of Daesh, which is based in Sinai, has claimed it was behind the downing of the Russian Airbus, although Russian and Egyptian officials have dismissed the claim.
Charlie Hebdo, which has previously caused controversy by depicting cartoons of Islam’s Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), published two cartoons on the Egypt incident in its latest issue. One cartoon depicts the remains of the bodies of the Russian passengers.
The other cartoon shows the plane’s parts falling down from the sky as a militant is seen down on the ground.
Charlie Hebdo was at the heart of the news in January when it was attacked by alleged extremist gunmen. The attack was largely believed to have been launched over the weekly’s previous cartoons of the Prophet (PBUH). The attack on the Paris offices of the magazine led to the killing of 12 people.
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