The 64-page book has an initial print run of 3,000 copies. It contains 48 satirical cartoons alongside comments by 10 cartoonists and researchers on Islam.

Source: mainichi.jp

TOKYO (Kyodo) — Tokyo-based publisher Daisan Shokan released a book on Tuesday containing cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad previously published in the French satirical weekly paper Charlie Hebdo.

Some bookstores have decided not to stock the book, titled “Islam Hate ka, Fushi ka” (Anti-Islam Hate, or Satire?), in response to opposition by Muslims in Japan.

About 500 bookstores nationwide have expressed interest in selling the book but have not yet decided whether to stock it.

Riot police from the Metropolitan Police Department have been stationed around Daisan Shokan’s headquarters in Shinjuku Ward since Tuesday morning.

The 64-page book has an initial print run of 3,000 copies. It contains 48 satirical cartoons alongside comments by 10 cartoonists and researchers on Islam.

Daisan Shokan President Akira Kitagawa said the book is not intended as an insult to Islam, adding, “We want this book to add to the debate on the limits of free expression.”

Kitagawa said his firm has blurred the face of Muhammad in the cartoons in the book, so as not to offend Muslims.

But a Muslim organization has maintained that printing the cartoons themselves is an affront to Islam.

A Pakistani Muslim living in Aichi Prefecture expressed regret over the publication at a press conference in Nagoya. “We cannot forgive any insult to the religion,” said 36-year-old Anees Ahmad Nadeem, leader of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community’s Japan unit and operator of an Islamic mosque in Tsushima in the central Japanese prefecture.

He said Japanese and Muslims have never insulted or injured each other, adding, “I wish to see such relations continue.”

He also said he protested to the publisher by telephone on Monday and Tuesday but failed to change its decision to publish the book.

Charlie Hebdo’s Paris office was attacked by extremist gunmen on Jan. 7, leaving 12 people dead. The weekly’s first issue following the attack carried a cartoon of Muhammad on the cover.

Last March, the Supreme Court upheld lower court rulings ordering Daisan Shokan to pay 35.2 million yen in damages to 16 Muslims living in Japan after it published a book based on leaked police documents linking the plaintiffs with terrorism.