Hundreds of thousands marched through the Chechen capital on Monday to protest the French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo, which again put a cartoon of the Prophet Mohammad on its cover. Demonstrators in Grozny, capital of the predominantly Muslim region in southern Russia, released balloons and carried posters that read “Hands off our beloved prophet” and “We love the prophet, we don’t love Charlie.”
Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov wrote on his official Instagram account on Friday that those, who defended the weekly Charlie Hebdo were his “personal enemies” and vowed that at least 1 million people would join the Government-sponsored protests in Grozny. On Monday, Kadyrov spoke from a stage wearing a vest with “We love the Prophet Muhammad” written on it.
A police spokesman told Interfax news agency that 800,000 people attended the protest on Monday, although those numbers were impossible to verify. Russia, which has a large and restive Muslim population and waged two devastating wars against Chechen separatists in the 1990s, offered its condolences to France after the Paris terror attacks earlier this month.