Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy

At least three people were injured Jan. 16 in clashes between anti-Charlie Hebdo protesters and police outside the French consulate in Pakistan's Karachi, officials said, including an AFP photographer who was shot in the back.
      

AFP photographer Asif Hassan was shot Jan. 16 while covering an anti-Charlie Hebdo protest by religious party activists outside the French Consulate in Karachi, but appeared to be out of danger following surgery.

The head of Bosnia's Islamic Community, Grand Mufti Husein Kavazovic, has condemned what he called "disgusting" a cartoon image of the Prophet Muhammed published in Wednesday's special issue of the French satirical magazine, Charlie Hebdo.

It shows a weeping Prophet holding a "Je suis Charlie" ("I am Charlie") sign below the words "All is forgiven".

Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davuto?lu told the European Union on Jan 15 they shared many values, including freedom of speech, but warned against "stigmatizing Muslims" in the fallout from the Paris Islamist attacks.

Davuto?lu noted after meeting European Union President Donald Tusk that he had been in Paris at the weekend to take part in the Charlie Hebdo solidarity march.

Before I went to bed the other night, I wrote this piece in my mind. I was going to address my colleagues at daily Cumhuriyet. I was going to tell them, ?Look, what is the point of publishing the cartoons now??

Yes, we have all said what we were going to say about the Charlie Hebdo massacre; we took the necessary and correct stance that we thought was most accurate. 

Beyond all the political and religious debates about Charlie Hebdo and the politics of Islam, there lies the harsh reality of family life and a woman?s role in society. As the West becomes more secular and women opt to become working mothers, Turkey is turning quite the opposite way.

Before cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad are drawn, we should tell the drawer that the significance we attribute to our prophet is enormous. We should tell them that we - let alone the drawing of a cartoon of our prophet - are even offended at drawing of a picture of him. We consider this insulting.

Charlie Hebdo founder: Editor "dragged team to their deaths"

PARIS -- A founder of Charlie Hebdo has condemned the murdered editor Stephane Charbonnier of "dragging the team" to their deaths, RT is reporting.

According to the report, Henri Roussel suggested that Charbonnier did so "by overdoing the satirical magazine's provocative cartoons."

French President Francois Hollande said Jan. 15 that Muslims were the "main victims" of fanaticism, as five of the 17 killed in last week's Islamist attacks in Paris were laid to rest.
      

By Costas Iordanidis

The horror in Paris, the cold-blooded murder of French citizens by other French citizens on religious grounds, was met with widespread condemnation but we are still a long way from a concerted political response to the threat of radical Islam.

This column will not attempt to solve the problem and it would be naive to presume that it could.