Egyptian paper launches counter campaign against French magazines' 'obscene' Prophet cartoons - India News and Travel Times Provides India-centric and other News and Features

An Egyptian newspaper has reportedly launched a campaign against the obscene cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad that were published by a French magazine. The secular daily Al-Watan published 13 cartoons under the slogan 'Fight cartoons with cartoons'. One of the pictures showed a pair of glasses through which the burning World Trade Center is seen, with the caption 'Western glasses for the Islamic world', the BBC reports. Another cartoon showed a white man accusing an angry, bearded man of being a terrorist until he sees he is from Israel and offers him a flower instead. The move came after French magazine Charlie Hebdo's cartoons played on the uproar over the anti-Islamic film, which mocks Islam. According to the report, Al-Watan also published articles by well-known secular writers and prominent Egyptian Islamic scholars and preachers. Readers of al-Watan, which is critical of the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood of President Mohammed Mursi, reacted positively to the supplement, the report said. Some readers praised the idea of confronting 'thought with thought' and thanking the paper for its 'civilised response'.