Mick Hartley

Charlie Hebdo has reprinted some of those cartoons. Certain people five years ago found them so offensive that they went on a killing spree, breaking into the magazine's offices and murdering 12 staff. The decision to reprint marks the start of the trial of 14 suspected accomplices, who've been accused of providing logistical and material support to the gunmen. 

Naturally, the Charlie Hebdo decision has not been universally well-received. Al-Qaeda have said that the original attack was not a "one-off"….it could happen again. Demonstrations – in Baghdad, for instance – have claimed that The Prophet, as the saviour of humanity, is not to be laughed at.

And various senior clerics have been making their views known.

Ayatollah Ahmad Alamolhoda, Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei's representative in the Khorasan Razavi province, for instance, wants to know why insulting the Prophet Muhammad is considered freedom of speech, while people who investigate the 'false and mythical' Holocaust are executed In Europe. 

"Even worse than swearing and acting impudently is justifying this impudence through political mechanisms in these European countries, particularly in France. A bunch of impure lowlife thieves, like [those at] the Charlie Hebdo journal, hurl insults, and France's President makes excuses for this. His justification is even worse than his insults. […]

"How can insulting the things that 1.5 billion people on Earth hold sacred be a form of freedom of expression, while investigating and clarifying the false and mythical issue of the Holocaust is not freedom of expression? There, nobody has the right to speak out, to investigate, and [to conclude] that the Holocaust is a myth, a lie, and an act of deception that has been turned into an excuse to steal the land of a group of oppressed Muslims in Palestine. It is a lie. It is a myth. Nobody has the right to talk about this. If a historian or researcher looks into this matter and comes to this conclusion, they execute him. They condemn him for just researching and discussing this topic. Is this not freedom of expression? Cursing the Prophet [Muhammad] is freedom of expression – hurting the feelings and faith of over 1.5 billion Muslims. Yet the oppressed blacks in America, and their chants of 'Human life matters,' is not freedom of expression. They kill, destroy, and oppress them just because they say 'Human life matters.'"

Also from MEMRI TV:

Canadian Islamic Scholar Younus Kathrada noted that disrespect of the Prophet Muhammad, such as in the form of cartoons that insult him, is disrespect of Allah, of Muslims, and of Islam. This is worse than police killings of black people in the United States.

Iranian Preacher Mohammad Mousavi condemned the recent reprinting of cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad by Charlie Hebdo. He said that this is a calculated move on the part of the West to distance Muslims from the Prophet Muhammad, to cause Islamophobia, and to create "Prophet-phobia." The loyalty of Muslims to the Prophet Muhammad, however, will only grow stronger, and this will pave the way for the emergence of the Hidden Imam and for the "annihilation of the people of the West."

Well, we've been warned.