Muslim nations are calling to boycott French products
It did not directly criticise Macron, although the French president had on Wednesday also contended that Paty was “killed because Islamists want our future”
Calls to boycott French goods are growing in the Arab world and beyond, after President Emmanuel Macron criticised Islamists and vowed not to "give up cartoons" depicting the Prophet Mohammed.
Macron's comments, on Wednesday, came 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 cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed during a class he was leading on free speech, reports Hindustan Times.
The teacher became the target of an online hate campaign over his choice of lesson material -- the same images that unleashed a bloody assault by Islamist gunmen on the offices of satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, the original publisher, in January 2015.
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Caricatures of Mohammed are forbidden by Islam.
On Friday, Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) condemned continued attacks and incitement against Muslim sentiment and insults of Prophet Muhammad.
A statement by the group criticized the "discourse from certain French politicians, which it deems to be harmful to the Muslim-French relations, hate-mongering and only serving partisan political interests."
It said it "will always condemn practices of blasphemy and of insulting Prophets of Islam, Christianity and Judaism" as it condemned any crime committed in the name of religion;
On Saturday, Jordan's foreign ministry said it condemned the "continued publication of caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed under the pretext of freedom of expression" and any "discriminatory and misleading attempts that seek to link Islam with terrorism."
It did not directly criticise Macron, although the French president had on Wednesday also contended that Paty was "killed because Islamists want our future".
But Jordan's opposition Islamic Action Front party called on the French president to apologise for his comments and urged citizens in the kingdom to boycott French goods.
Such boycotts are already underway in Kuwait and Qatar.
Dozens of Kuwaiti stores are boycotting French products, with images on social media showing workers removing French Kiri and Babybel processed cheese from shelves.
In Doha, an AFP correspondent saw workers stripping shelves of French-made St. Dalfour jams and Saf-Instant yeast in a branch of the Al Meera supermarket chain on Saturday.
Al Meera competes with French supermarket chains Monoprix and Carrefour for market share in the lucrative Qatari grocery sector.
Al Meera and another grocery operator, Souq Al Baladi, released statements late Friday saying they would pull French products from stores until further notice.
Turkey President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and a major ally of Qatar -- on Saturday slammed Macron over his policies toward Muslims, saying that the French president needed "mental checks."
"What can one say about a head of state who treats millions of members from different faith groups this way: first of all, have mental checks," Erdogan said in a televised address.
Before Macron's comments on Wednesday, he had already sparked a backlash in early October when he said "Islam is a religion that is in crisis all over the world".
In Bangladesh also, a sense of unity is growing along with the rest of the Muslim community. Although no official statement has come from the government or any concerned authority, people are sharing their outrage having similar sentiments.
A Facebook user named Md Zahirul Islam wrote that "The bleeding of the heart does not seem to be stopping. A cartoon of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) has been publicly painted in two multi-storied buildings in the French capital, and the country's administration has ensured his protection under extensive police guard."
Meanwhile, a demonstration has been called today at 4 pm at the Raju Vashkorjo area of the University of Dhaka under the banner of "General Students" to condemn the recent activities and to urge everyone to boycott France.
Apart from that, a great number of people are using #BoycottFrance #BoycottFranceproducts #wehateFrancegovernemnt to demonstrate collective solidarity.
