800,000 Muslims Rally Against Charlie Hebdo in Chechnya – A Country of 1.3 Million People
Posted by Jim Hoft on Tuesday, January 20, 2015, 7:06 PM
Nearly one million Muslims rallied in Grozny, Chechnya against the French magazine Charlie Hebdo. They’re more upset with the magazine than they are with the killer Kouachi brothers.
chechnya protest People attend a rally to protest against satirical cartoons of prophet Mohammad, near the Heart of Chechnya mosque in Grozny, Chechnya January 19, 2015. (Reuters / Eduard Korniyenko)
There are only 1.3 million people in all of Chechnya.
Voice of America reported: Hundreds of thousands of people in the Russian Muslim region of Chechnya gathered in the regional capital Grozny on Monday to protest against caricatures of Islam’s Prophet Muhammad.
Chechnya’s Interior Ministry said more than a million people attended the demonstration. Earlier Monday, the Russian Interior Ministry had estimated the number of attendees at more than 800,000.
The republic’s population is around 1.3 million.
Before the rally, Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov urged people to attend to protest against what he called “the vulgarity, immorality, lack of culture, and the shamelessness of those who drew the caricatures of the Prophet.”
Earlier this month, gunman attacked the offices of the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in Paris, killing 12 people. The killings were said to be retaliation for the publication’s depictions of Muhammad.
Some of the Chechen protesters Monday carried signs reading “Hands off the Prophet Muhammad,” Addressing the crowd, Kadyrov declared “If needed, we are ready to die to stop anyone who thinks that you can irresponsibly defile the name of the Prophet.”
Chechen Muslims gather in downtown regional capital of Grozny to take part in a protest rally against the French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo, Jan. 19, 2015. (VOA News)
Tony Mažeika,Los Angeles, CA