Protesters in Istanbul decry Charlie Hebdo’s reprinting of Mohammed cartoons

Around 200 people in Istanbul demonstrate against a French magazine’s decision to republish cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed.

Satirical French weekly Charlie Hebdo — the target of a massacre by Islamist gunmen in 2015 — reprinted the controversial images to mark the start of the trial earlier this month, of the alleged accomplices in the assault.

Images of the prophet are banned in Islam.

Twelve people, including some of France’s most celebrated cartoonists, were killed on January 7, 2015, when brothers Said and Cherif Kouachi went on a gun rampage at the paper’s offices in Paris.

Some protesters in Beyazit Square on the European side of Istanbul hold placards warning Charlie Hebdo and French President Emmanuel Macron “will pay a heavy price.”

Macron defended the magazine’s “freedom to blaspheme.”

— AFP