Putin: Insulting Prophet Muhammad Cannot Be Justified as Freedom of Expression

Russian President Vladimir Putin has expressed his conviction that insulting the feelings of believers in freedom of creativity cannot be justified.

Putin asked, during a major annual press conference held today, Thursday, in response to a question about the line between insulting someone’s feelings and “the artist’s right to express,” he wondered whether there was any relationship between downloading a picture of Nazi leader Adolf Hitler to a website. The Immortal Regiment is dedicated to WWII veterans and freedom of creativity.

“Let’s think about this aspect of the issue. We must provide freedom in general, because a sad and boring future awaits us without it, but we must realize that this freedom contradicts our goals when it tampers with someone else’s freedom,” the Russian president said.

He asked, “Does insulting the Prophet Muhammad represent freedom of creativity? I don’t think so. Such matters call for other, more extreme phenomena.”

Putin recalled the bloody terrorist attack on January 7, years ago, at the headquarters of “Charlie Hebdo” magazine in Paris after it published caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad, stressing the need to prevent such tragic incidents from happening.