Kuwaiti civil groups pushing for criminalizing defamation of prophets
Urge UN and Human Rights Council to work for a binding resolution
Cairo: Thirty-seven Kuwaiti civil society groups have urged the UN and the Human Rights Council to work for a binding resolution criminalising defamation of prophets amid Muslim outrage over offensive cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed (PBUH) that were circulated in France.
The groups denounced the French leadership’s defence of the caricatures and said that defaming the Prophet Mohammed is a “flagrant violation of Muslims’ rights”. They added in a statement: “Agitating sedition and hatred, pursued by some Western countries, including France especially in view of recent ensuing incident, violates principles of freedom and human rights.”
Calls have mounted in the Muslim world for boycotting French goods after French President Emmanuel Macron was quoted as saying his country would not give up the caricatures and defended the right to publish them.
Macron’s remarks came after a French history teacher was beheaded outside a school in a Paris suburb for showing the cartoons.
On Thursday, a knife-wielding man believed to be a Tunisian killed three people in a church in Nice in southern France.