The Centre of Muslim Communities in the Czech Republic Monday condemned the cartoons of Prophet Muhammad that have recently appeared in Prague and Brno.
Vladimir Sanka and Munib Hassan, representatives of the Prague and Brno communities, said the authors of the posters abused the freedom of speech, trying to incite civic intolerance.
They called on Czech Muslims "to behave in the Islamic way and to keep protecting calm and safe life in our country."
"As Czech citizens, we condemn any abuse of the freedom of speech leading to the dissemination of hatred and xenophobic and racist ideas," they said.
"Lies, defamation and insults have nothing in common with the freedom of speech," they said, adding that authors of the posters wanted to destabilise the situation in the Czech Republic.
They called on the rest of the population to denounce the cartoons as well.
"We believe that we will be able to jointly prevent this type of things. This will proceed through understanding and objective approach, free of lies, prejudices and any misunderstanding," they wrote in a statement.
At one of cartoons, Muhammad is depicted with a bomb in his turban and a detonator like in the Danish paper Jyllands Posten in 2005, while the other poster calls him a paedophile.
The posters' captions say: "Maybe provocative, but the freedom of speech is still more important !!!"
Twelve cartoons of Muhammad were published by Jyllands Posten in 2005. This sparked off a wave of worldwide protests that claimed about 150 lives. The mob attacked the Danish embassies and everything embodying Western culture.
Earlier Monday, eight people died in a suicide attack on the Danish embassy in Islamabad.
In the Czech Republic, the first posters appeared in Brno in March. As the police did not find who pasted them up, the case was shelved.
Source: Prague Monitor (English)
See also: Prague: Muhammad cartoon posters against Islamist extremism
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