A protest action of believers passed off in front of the Embassy of France in Baku

Today about 50 people held an action of protest in front of the Embassy of France in Baku in connection with caricatures of Prophet Muhammad published in "Charlie Hebdo" French satiric weekly. Center of freedom of conscience and confession also condemned the caricatures and the film "Innocence of Muslims".

It should be mentioned that the drawings depicting Prophet Muhammad naked were published in "Charlie Hebdo" issue dated September, 19. The web-site of the media explained that the caricatures were placed in section "Fundamentalism" under the header that could be word-for-word translated as "Muhammad is shooting a film" or "Muhammad organized a circus".

The participants of the action in Baku were chanting: "Down with France!"

The protest action was held about midday. On coming up to the Embassy the believers started chanting slogans: "Down with France!", "Allahu akbar!" etc.

Strengthened riot squads that arrived at the building of the Embassy several minutes later pressed the participants back from the diplomatic mission detaining several persons.

The police took the building of the Embassy under guard and started pressing back small groups of participants who tried to approach the Embassy.

The confrontation between the police and participants of the action blocked motor transport traffic in the streets adjoining the Embassy of France for 10 minutes.

None of the political or religious organizations assumed responsibility for holding the protest action.

The Embassy of France produced no comment of the incident.

Ibragimoglu: the film "Innocence of Muslims" and caricatures of Prophet Muhammad are offence to all the Muslims

The Muslims of Azerbaijan expressed their protest against the film "Innocence of Muslims" and caricatures of Prophet Muhammad in the French weekly on September, 21, in the International Press-center in Baku where a round table conference organized by the Center of freedom of conscience and confession (DEVAMM) was held.

The meeting was called an "integral part" of the actions of protest of Muslims going on all over the World.

Head of DEVAMM Ilgar Ibragimoglu emphasized that the film and caricatures were not only an offence of Prophet Muhammad but of all the Muslims, too.

"It is a terror, a bloodless moral terror touching upon the feelings of one billion people", he said.

The participants of the meeting called for the Christians and Jews to raise their voice of protest against offence of the Muslims and also rejected the attempt of certain forces to present the anti-Islamic film and caricatures of the Prophet as an expression of freedom of speech. Offence of the Prophet is incompatible with freedom of expression, therefore the authors of the film and the caricatures must be punished, a statement adopted upon the results of the round table conference runs.