TEHRAN — People of all walks of life gathered in Tehran’s Imam Hussein Square on Thursday to protest the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo’s reprinting of insulting cartoons of Prophet Mohammad (PBUH) as well as desecration of the Quran in Sweden.

The protesters denounced the provocative moves as part of a global Islamophobic agenda pursued by the U.S. and the global Zionist lobby, Press TV reported.

The rally was held with strict observance of health precautions to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, with sanitizers and face masks being distributed among the participants.

Charlie Hebdo on September 2 republished the same cartoons about Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) that prompted a deadly attack on the magazine in 2015.

The cartoons were republished so as to mark the start of the terrorism trial of people accused as accomplices in the attack. The magazine posted the cartoons online on September 1 and they appeared in print the next day.

13 men and a woman accused of providing the attackers with weapons and logistics went on trial on charges of terrorism.

Twelve people, including some of France’s most famous cartoonists, were killed on January 7, 2015, when two French-born brothers of Algerian descent, Said and Cherif Kouachi, went on a gun rampage at Charlie Hebdo’s offices in Paris.

The international Muslim community is also raging against another move by right-wing extremists to set fire to a copy of the holy Quran in the southern Swedish city of Malmo late last month.

Some 300 protesters flocked to the streets in Sweden's third largest city of Malmo on August 28 to denounce the act of anti-Muslim bigotry.

On the same day, three men had also started playfully kicking a copy of the holy Muslim book between them in a public square in Malmo.

MH/PA