Hezbollah supporters attend the televised address of the party's general secretary, Hassan Nasrallah, in the southern suburbs of Beirut on Jan. 3, 2023. (Credit: Anwar Amro/AFP)
BEIRUT — Hezbollah on Tuesday criticized cartoons published last week by the French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo depicting Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, deeming the drawings insulting.
In a press release, the party also urged the French government to "punish" the authors of these cartoons.
Charlie Hebdo was the target of a deadly attack in 2015, when gunmen aligned with Al-Qaeda killed 12 people at the newspaper's office in Paris.
The Khamanei cartoons were published following a competition organized by Charlie Hebdo in December to produce "the funniest and most wicked caricature of Ali Khamenei, Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran."
Iran has been shaken for several months by countrywide protests after the death in detention of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini for allegedly breaking the country's modest dress codes for women.
'Horrible work'
In a press release dated Tuesday, Hezbollah stated that "Charlie Hebdo magazine is once again committing an offense and an attack on our sanctity and our values, the same magazine that has repeatedly attacked our Prophet Muhammed." The paper has previously published controversial cartoons depicting Muhammad.
Hezbollah said it "strongly condemns the horrible work of this magazine ... We denounce it in the strongest possible terms and call on all free and honorable citizens in the world to reject it," the statement said.
"Imam Khamenei is not only the leader of a great state, but also an imam of the ummah and a religious reference for tens of thousands of believers, a high symbol of all that is humanity, freedom, dignity, resistance," the statement continued. "We can see how the West acts with opinions and stances that are opposed to its fundamental political interests."
With the publication of these cartoons, Charlie Hebdo finds itself at the heart of a diplomatic crisis. Tehran last week announced the closure of the oldest and most important French research center in the country, affiliated with France's foreign ministry. Several dozen people gathered outside the French embassy in Tehran on Sunday to burn French flags in protest against the cartoons.
Charlie Hebdo said it published these cartoons to support the Iranian people during a mass protest movement nearing its fourth month.
