Hezbollah urges France to punish magazine over Iran cartoons

Lebanon’s Hezbollah terror group condemns cartoons of Iran’s supreme leader published last week by the French weekly Charlie Hebdo, calling on Paris to punish the satirical magazine.

The magazine says the caricatures of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei were published in support of protests in Iran sparked by the death in custody of Mahsa Amini, after her arrest for an alleged breach of the country’s strict dress code for women.

Tehran’s close ally Hezbollah calls 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,” the Shiite movement says in a statement.