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Volgograd cartoon causes scandal


The Prosecutor General`s Office said Wednesday that it was investigating whether a Volgograd newspaper was guilty of inciting ethnic hatred after it published a cartoon last week showing Jesus, Moses, Buddha and the Prophet Mohammed.

The cartoon shows the four religious figures watching television footage of two angry mobs throwing stones at each other, to which Moses says, "We didn`t teach them that."
The investigation into the cartoon - which was published by Gorodskiye Vesti, the daily newspaper of the Volgograd city administration, to accompany an article under the headline "Racists Can`t Be in Government" -- may stem at least in part from local political infighting.

The prosecutors are investigating in response to a complaint from the Volgograd branch of United Russia, said Lidia Sergeyeva, a spokeswoman for the Volgograd region prosecutor`s office.

Deputy Prosecutor General Nikolai Shepel has sent a representative from Moscow to the regional prosecutor`s office, which will handle the investigation, she said.

"Free speech and what happened in Denmark, breaking the law by insulting religious believers` feelings, are two completely incompatible things," Shepel said in televised comments Wednesday.

Sergei Vovchenko, spokesman for United Russia`s Volgograd regional branch, said by telephone Wednesday that his office had received hundreds of calls, primarily from party members, complaining about the cartoon the day it was published.

"They were saying it was a racist cartoon, and considering that we`re in the south of Russia, near the North Caucasus, with many different religions living side by side, we wanted the prosecutors to determine its legality," he said.

The Volgograd mayor`s office and Tatyana Kaminskaya, editor of Gorodskiye Vesti, said the cartoon, which was published Feb. 9, was a call for peace.

"The point of the cartoon was that regardless of which faith someone belongs to, they should not fight or go to war with one another," Kaminskaya said.

Neither the newspaper nor the city administration has received complaints about the cartoon, she and Volgograd Deputy Mayor Konstantin Kalachyov said. "But if a believer calls me and tells me they are offended, I will apologize," Kaminskaya said. "I am a believer myself, and I understand that one must approach religious issues delicately."

Representatives of the four religions portrayed in the cartoon have spoken on the issue in recent days, if not in direct response to the Volgograd cartoon, then in light of the recent protests over controversial drawings of Mohammed in a Danish newspaper. Their opinions differed on whether it was insulting.

"According to the moral and ethical norms of Judaism, there is nothing in the image or the text of this publication that could be seen as inciting ethnic or religious hatred," Rabbi Zalman Ioffe, head of the Volgograd Jewish Religious Community, said by telephone Wednesday.

Dolma Shagdorova, head of the Moscow Community of Buddhists, said she had not seen the cartoon, but that if it represented a call for religious tolerance, it would not contradict the tenants of Buddhism. "Assuming, of course, they aren`t mocking or grotesque images," she said.

Ravil Gainutdin, head of the Council of Muftis of Russia, said at a news conference Tuesday that the council, in the name of 20 million Muslims in Russia, angrily denounced the publication of insulting cartoons of Mohammed in the Western press, according to the council`s web site. "In Russia, Muslims have traditionally been very moderate and showed tolerance when they saw their mosques being destroyed, religious leaders killed and the Quran burned," he said. "Muslims have been praying to Allah, asking Him to punish those who are scoffing."

Telephone calls to the Moscow Patriarchate of the Russian Orthodox Church went unanswered Wednesday. Father Vladimir Vigilyansky, a spokesman for the Patriarchate who was interviewed Tuesday on Rossia television, likened the publication of drawings offensive to religious beliefs to Soviet repression.

Leonid Syukiainen, an expert in Islamic law at the Higher School of Economics, said that if the cartoon had been published before the scandal surrounding the Danish newspaper, there would not have been such a sharp reaction. "People would have been insulted, but it would have probably ended with a negative attitude" toward the paper, he said.

Syukiainen said the newspaper was perhaps playing with fire by publishing the cartoon in a city close to the North Caucasus. "It`s hard to pin down the typical Russian Muslim`s reaction," he said. "It may be just 500 people that were seriously offended, but perhaps those 500 are ready to lash out violently against the editors or the author."

Human rights activists said Wednesday that they saw nothing illegal in the cartoon and that the authorities were simply demonstrating that they are keeping an eye on anything remotely inflammatory regarding religion.

Lyudmila Alexeyeva, head of the Moscow Helsinki Group, said Roskhrankultura`s warning violated freedom of speech. "All religious politics are restricted to support for the Russian Orthodox Church as opposed to other religious confessions," she said.

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18.09.2017
Volgograd cartoon causes scandal -  Знаменитости Volgograd cartoon causes scandal шоу бизнес последние эротические фотографии  эротика лучшие
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