PRAGUE: Police in the Czech Republic have opened an investigation into posters depicting controversial caricatures of Prophet Mohamed illegally put up in the city of Brno, local media reported Wednesday.
The posters displayed caricatures that first appeared in Denmark in 2005 and subsequently sparked a wave of protests throughout the Muslim world.
The ministry for foreign affairs said police in Brno – the second largest city in the Czech Republic after Prague – are looking to find out who put up the posters.
They show the Prophet wearing a turban in the shape of a bomb next to the slogan “Freedom is not free and signed by an unknown group referring to itself as “Friends of the Freedom of Speech .
“This has nothing to do with freedom of speech, said Foreign Affairs Minister Karel Schwarzenberg, according to a statement in which he also accused those responsible for the posters as being intolerant and aggressive. With a population of around 10.2 million, the Czech Republic counts only about 400 Czechs who are Muslim and another 20,000 foreign Muslims living and working in the country.
The country has two mosques, one in Prague and another in Brno. -AFP
