The spiritual leader of Bosnia’s Islamic community on Thursday slammed the new issue of French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo.

The spiritual leader of Bosnia’s Islamic community on Thursday slammed the new issue of French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo for again featuring cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed that many Muslims find offensive.

“We condemn in the strongest possible terms the abuse of freedom of speech and artistic expression used to humiliate, with premeditation, other people and what is sacred to them,” Grand Mufti Husein Kavazovic said in a statement.

The objective in publishing new cartoons, he said, was to “present the honourable face of the Prophet Mohammed in an odious and lying way.”

Kavazovic last week condemned the deadly attack January 7 against the French weekly that left 12 people dead, stressing freedom “is stronger than fear…and indestructible.”

A total of 17 people were gunned down during two jihadist assaults in and around Paris last week.

This week Charlie Hebdo published a “survivors” issue featuring an image of the Prophet Mohammed weeping, which sold out Wednesday before more copies in an eventual print run of five million hit newsstands in France.

The move provoked angry reactions in a number of Islamic countries, where any representation of Mohammed is prohibited.

In Bosnia, the reproduction of the cartoon was not banned, but local media and Internet sites did not publish it.

Muslims make some 40 percent of Bosnia’s population of 3.8 million, the vast majority supporters of a moderate Islam.

Orthodox Serbs and Catholics represent 31 and 10 percent respectively of the Balkan country’s population.

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