Lebanon’s powerful Shiite extremist Hezbollah movement on Tuesday condemned cartoons of Iran’s supreme leader published last week by Charlie Hebdo, calling on Paris to punish the French satirical magazine.
Charlie Hebdo said the caricatures of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei were published in support of the anti-regime protests gripping the Islamic Republic and sparked by the death of Mahsa Amini, who was killed while in custody of Tehran’s morality police for wearing her hijab “incorrectly.”
Tehran’s close ally Hezbollah called on “the French government to take firm measures to punish the perpetrators of this act, who attacked what is sacred and flouted the dignity of an entire nation.”
Khamenei “is not just the leader of a great country – he is a religious reference for tens of millions of followers,” it added.
The Charlie Hebdo magazine did not reply to an i24NEWS request for comment.
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