Criticism of religion

NOVI PAZAR - A peaceful protest walk was held in Novi Pazar on Friday against the publication of caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad in the French weekly Charlie Hebdo and other medias.

The protest walk was organized after the largest Friday congregational prayer service in Novi Pazar mosques. The gathered locals held a banner saying "Muhammad" and shouted "Allah is one".

Thousands march against Muhammad cartoons

NOVI PAZAR -- About 5,000 people in Serbia's southwestern town of Novi Pazar on Friday took part in a peaceful protest against cartoons depicting Islamic prophet Muhammad.

Novi Pazar is the largest town in the Raska District, also known informally as Sandzak, that is home to a large Muslim minority.

Relatives of those killed in the NATO bombing of the Serbian public broadcaster RTS in 1999 said that they resent comparisons with the attack on French magazine Charlie Hebdo.

Sweden's ambassador to Ankara urges for a balanced approach in dealing with Islamist terror attacks, saying a distinction should be made between criticizing Islamist extremists and Islamophobia Nobody should stigmatize all Muslims for the crimes committed by fundamentalists, yet nobody should label criticism of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and its methods as Islamophob

Washington stands side-by-side with victims of terror around the world, President Barack Obama vowed Jan. 20, asking lawmakers to give him updated war powers to defeat Islamic militants in Iraq and Syria.
      

Four men will appear before a judge in France on Jan. 20 to face possible charges of providing support to one of the Paris Islamist attackers, the prosecutors' office said.
      

Balkan media unites in condemning Paris attacks

Regional media unites, calling the recent terrorism in Paris an attack on freedom of expression.

Journalists in the region united to condemn the recent terrorist attack on Charlie Hebdo. [AFP]

Police in Niger fired tear gas Jan. 18 to break up a banned opposition demonstration in the capital Niamey, a day after deadly riots over the publication by France's Charlie Hebdo magazine of a cartoon of the Prophet Mohammed.
      
Around 300 demonstrators had gathered at a central square for a long-planned march on parliament.
      

Almost half of French oppose publication of cartoons depicting Islam's Prophet Mohammed, according to a poll Jan. 18, as global debate deepened on the limits of free speech in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo killings.
      

Cherif Kouachi, one of the two brothers who killed 12 people in an attack on France's Charlie Hebdo magazine, has been buried amid tight security outside of Paris, the local mayor's office told AFP.