* Cartoons portray Prophet naked, mock furore over film
* French government criticises publication, boosts security
* Arab League says protests should be peaceful
* Security increased outside magazine's offices
PARIS, Sept 19 (Reuters) - A French magazine ridiculed the
Prophet Mohammad on Wednesday by portraying him naked in
cartoons, threatening to fuel the anger of Muslims around the
world who are already incensed by a California-made video
depicting him as a lecherous fool.
The drawings in the satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo risked
exacerbating a crisis that has seen the storming of U.S. and
other Western embassies, the killing of the U.S. ambassador to
Libya and a deadly suicide bombing in Afghanistan.
Riot police were deployed to protect the paper's Paris
offices after the issue hit news stands.
It featured several caricatures of the Prophet showing him
naked in what the publishers said was an attempt to poke fun at
the furore over the film. One, entitled "Mohammad: a star is
born", depicted a bearded figure crouching over to display his
buttocks and genitals.
The French government, which had urged the weekly not to
print the cartoons, said it was shutting embassies and schools
in 20 countries as a precaution on Friday, when protests
sometimes break out after Muslim prayers.
Arab League Secretary-General Nabil Elaraby called the
drawings outrageous but said those who were offended by them
should "use peaceful means to express their firm rejection".
Tunisia's ruling Islamist party, Ennahda, condemned what it
called an act of "aggression" against Mohammad but urged Muslims
not to fall into a trap intended to "derail the Arab Spring and
turn it into a conflict with the West".
In the northern Paris suburb of Sarcelles, one person was
slightly hurt when two masked men threw a small explosive device
through the window of a kosher supermarket. Police said it was
too early to link the incident to the cartoons. One small local
Muslim group filed a legal complaint against the weekly but
there were no reports of reaction on the streets of France.
The posting on YouTube of a crude video, made in the United
States and available on YouTube since July, that mocked Mohammad
as a womanising buffoon has sparked protests in many countries,
some of them deadly.
The U.S. envoy to Libya and three other Americans were
killed in an attack in Benghazi, and U.S. and other foreign
embassies were attacked in cities in Asia, Africa and the Middle
East by furious Muslims.
Matthew Olsen, director of the U.S. government's National
Counterterrorism Center, branded the Benghazi assault a
"terrorist attack" and said officials were examining the
possibility that individuals involved in the attack may have
links to al Qaeda, and particularly the affiliate group al Qaeda
in the Islamic Maghreb.
INTERNATIONAL DEBATE
The furore has emerged as an issue in the U.S. presidential
election campaign and sparked international debate over free
speech, religion and the right to offend. Many Muslims consider
any representation of Allah or the Prophet Mohammad blasphemous.
In Los Angeles, an actress who appeared in the video filed a
lawsuit against a Coptic Christian man linked to the film,
Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, accusing him of fraud and slander and
asking that the film's trailer be removed from the Internet.
It was the first known civil lawsuit connected to the film
that has circulated online as a 13-minute trailer, including
under the title "Innocence of Muslims."
The actress, Cindy Lee Garcia, also named Google Inc
and its YouTube unit as defendants. Garcia's lawsuit
stated that she thought she was appearing in a desert adventure
film, not a "hateful" production about the Muslim prophet.
The United States has condemned the content of the video
while defending the right to free speech, and took a similar
line on the French cartoons.
"We know that these images will be deeply offensive to many
and have the potential to be inflammatory. But we've spoken
repeatedly about the importance of upholding the freedom of
expression that is enshrined in our constitution," White House
spokesman Jay Carney told reporters.
"In other words, we don't question the right of something
like this to be published, we just question the judgment behind
the decision to publish it."
In the Lebanese city of Sidon, around 10,000 people joined a
march organised by the Shi'ite group Hezbollah to protest
against the film and the cartoons, shouting "Enough
humiliation!" and "Death to America! Death to Israel!".
In Egypt, Essam Erian, acting head of the Muslim
Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party, told Reuters: "We
reject and condemn the French cartoons that dishonour the
Prophet and we condemn any action that defames the sacred
according to people's beliefs."
At the same time, rights groups demanded the release of a
Coptic Christian computer science graduate who they said had
been beaten up and arrested in Cairo on suspicion of re-posting
the anti-Islam video online.
In France, a joint statement by Catholic bishop Michel
Dubost and Mohammed Moussaoui, president of the French Muslim
Council, defended the right to freedom of expression under the
cherished French principles of "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity".
"But freedom endangers itself if it forgets fraternity and
respect for everyone's equal right to dignity," they added.
French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius called the
publication of the cartoons a provocation.
"We saw what happened last week in Libya and in other
countries such as Afghanistan," he told a regular news
conference. "We have to call on all to behave responsibly."
CALL FOR CAUTION
France's ambassador to Iran sent French citizens there a
message urging them to exercise great caution, especially on
Friday, and around diplomatic missions and places of worship.
But Charlie Hebdo's editor, Stephane Charbonnier, rejected
the criticism. "We have the impression that it's officially
allowed for Charlie Hebdo to attack the Catholic far-right but
we cannot poke fun at fundamental Islamists," he said.
"It shows the climate. Everyone is driven by fear, and that
is exactly what this small handful of extremists who do not
represent anyone want: to make everyone afraid, to shut us all
in a cave," he told Reuters.
One cartoon alluded to the scandal over a French magazine's
publication of topless photos of the wife of Britain's Prince
William. It showed a bare female torso topped by a beard with
the caption "Riots in Arab countries after photos of Mrs
Mohammad are published".
Charlie Hebdo is no stranger to controversy. Its Paris
offices were firebombed last November after it published a
mocking caricature of Mohammad, and Charbonnier has been under
police guard ever since.
Speaking outside his offices in an eastern neighbourhood
with many residents of North African origin, Charbonnier said he
had not received any threats over the latest cartoons. In a
message on its Twitter account, Charlie Hebdo said its website
had been hacked, but referred readers to a blog it also uses.
In 2005, Danish cartoons of the Prophet sparked a wave of
protests across the Muslim world in which at least 50 died.
France is already on alert for attacks by al Qaeda on French
interests in West Africa.
A diplomatic source said this week that Paris had recently
foiled attacks on economic and diplomatic targets and had
credible evidence that more were planned.
"Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb is a direct and immediate
threat," the source said.