Alif co-stars Hamza Ali Abbasi and Ahsan Khan have condemned blasphemous caricatures of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), which have been republished by the Charlie Hebdo magazine in France.
In a tweet, Hamza said: “It is your right to disagree and criticise but it is not your right to mock with the intent to deliberately insult and provoke.”
He continued: “The only way we Muslims can make the world understand that is solely by peace and dialogue not murder, war and hostility.”
Drawing comparisons, the actor further said: “What if Muslims organise a contest of throwing cow meat on a Ram statue? Or who can slaughter the most pigs in a synagogue or who can spit on a cross with the most accuracy. It’s evil.”
Ahsan Khan also had similar views. Voicing his protest against France for its actions, the actor said: “If France is indeed a republic, then there should be liberty there, not insults upon another’s religion.”
Other celebrities including Feroze Khan and Shoaib Akhtar also expressed their disgust at the French President’s remarks.
On Sunday, French President Emmanuel Macron had tweeted, “We will not give in, ever to Islamic radicals.”
“We do not accept hate speech and defend reasonable debate,” the French leader added.
Calls to boycott French goods are already growing in the Arab world and beyond after Macron criticised Islamists and vowed not to “give up cartoons” depicting the Holy Prophet (PBUH).
Macron’s initial comments, on Wednesday, had come in response to the beheading of a teacher, Samuel Paty, outside his school in a suburb outside Paris earlier this month, after he had shown the blasphemous cartoons during a class he was leading on free speech.
With the French president pledging to fight “Islamist separatism”, which he said was threatening to take control in some Muslim communities around France, hashtags such as the #BoycottFrenchProducts in English and the Arabic #ExceptGodsMessenger trended across countries, including Pakistan, Kuwait, Qatar, Palestine, Egypt, Algeria, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Turkey.
